37 ms·

Action video games improve brain function more than so-called ‘brain games’

39 points by frostmatthew 11y ago

doctorpangloss 11y ago
"Action video games" is the fascinating academic-grant-ready rebranding of violent video games, in case anyone is confused what this is talking about. Is there a stigma associated with violent video games? Of course. No academic institutions are funding developmental psychology research into violent video games the way they fund the study of educational games. This is despite violent video games being way more appealing to children. Beyond psych? More people have inhabited the Office level in Counter-Strike for more combined time than any office building ever built in Manhattan. But you'll never read about video game architecture in an architecture journal, design blog, etc. It's a universal aversion to serious conversations about games just because they involve shooting aliens. Can development psychologists get out of the ghetto of investigating games' impact on violence or attention deficit? Maybe. Studies like the one done in this article are a good step forward. But this study still indicts video games for something, just different video games. The improvement-in-vision studies are on the right track, but they are at this point half a decade old. Surely someone has some fresh ideas. Those game developers haven't read a single page of psychology literature. Yet they have succeeded in massive, non-chemical cognitive behavioral modifications. You'd think someone could make an academic career out of this.
- gilgoomesh 11y ago
  While the article did mention first (Wolfenstein: The New Order) and third (Grand Theft Auto V) person shooters as "action video games", the term could easily apply to games like Rocket League which – while similarly fast-reflex online multiplayer games – are violence free. The specific description of action video games in the article is: > complex 3D settings, that feature quickly moving targets that pop in and out of view, that necessitate substantial visual processing of the periphery, that include large amounts of clutter and task-irrelevant objects, that require the player to consistently switch between highly focused and highly distributed attention, and that require the player to make rapid, but accurate decisions There is no mention of violence or shooting.
- ajuc 11y ago
  > Those game developers haven't read a single page of psychology literature How do you know that? I've been on gamedev conference where developers talked about monetization strategies for mobile free to play games, and it was basicaly dark psychology course (was revolting and fascinating at the same time).
hacker_9 11y ago
Is this much of a surprise? 'Action video games' these days take place in basically real life 3d simulations - any problems you solve in them can basically map directly into the real world (travelling from A to B, resource/time management, awareness of what your enemies/competition are thinking/doing etc)
- strictnein 11y ago
  When my wife asks me why I enjoy FPSs (Titanfall, Call of Duty, Halo, etc), I try to explain to her that its like the fastest game of chess imaginable. The difference being that you can only see a couple of the pieces on the board and you have to try to keep track of where you think the remaining pieces are in your mind.
hmahncke 11y ago
PDF link to actual scientific publication here: http://bbs.sagepub.com/content/2/1/101.full.pdf+html http://bbs.sagepub.com/content/2/1/101.full.pdf+html It should be mentioned that the article is a review article and doesn't provide any actual head-to-head comparisons between "action video games" and "brain games." In addition, one of the authors (Aaron Seitz) developed a cognitive training program (Ultimeyes) that is much more like a "brain game" than an "action video game" A summary from the article than its title is "A new article argues that it is the specific content, dynamics, and mechanics of individual games that determine their effects on the brain and that action video games might have particularly positive benefits."
Asbostos 11y ago
It's unfortunate that video games need research to make them seem worthwhile, but sports are widely accepted as being good things for kids to do. Even though I'd bet there's a negative correlation between time spent playing sport and academic performance, at least at the more extreme ends of the spectrum. At high school, it's not even good for preventing obesity since the most lasting obesity starts in childhood before teenage years. Anecdotally, I know several people who played competitive sport at high school then quickly became overweight afterwards apparently because they maintained the high-energy eating habits they needed as a teenager.
- eru 11y ago
  > It's unfortunate that video games need research to make them seem worthwhile, [...] Just wait a generation. I am willing to bet however, that your opinion on sports is too pessimistic. At low to medium levels sports probably helps academic performance, because it helps everything. (But for a proper bet, we'd have to agree on more precise terms, and odds we are offering, and an amount, and then go ahead and do some research.)
  - Asbostos 11y ago
    Yea, you're probably right about moderate levels of sport. On a very direct level, faster blood circulation from exercise improves brain function. There's probably also some motivation/self-esteem feelings it helps with as well. I wonder if in a generation we'll see posters encouraging kids to play video games instead of blobbing out in front of the Facebook or whatever the new bogeyman is. I get the feeling that using a computer (or phone or whatever it is) is becoming accepted as default OK and now it's the specific types of app that can be "good" or "bad".
  - mhurron 11y ago
    > Just wait a generation. There are still plenty of people who have grown up with games as a normal part of life that look down on those who play them as wasting time and hold it as a badge of honour when they no longer play them, as though this means they have now matured. Modern sports grew out of gentleman's games in universities, the whole culture was something that people looked up to as civilized before it came to be something everyone 'participated' in. > At low to medium levels sports probably helps academic performance I don't believe the parent was talking about actually playing sports, which would help, but was more talking about the Sunday Afternoon Football game where it is socially acceptable to sit and watch the game and associated commentary for hours
83457 11y ago
I don't know about action games in general but I definitely feel like highly competitive games (esports) have an extreme mental side to them. I'm thinking about some of the top games like Counter-Strike, League of Legends, Dota, Starcraft. Most of the difficulty in those games is decision making, being able to keep track of multiple things at once and, at least in the team games, be able to gather information about your opponent and communicate that to your teammates effectively. edit: and you get good at those by playing and practicing that one game for thousands of hours
- rnet85 11y ago
  Indeed, like the amount of planning and strategy in this Q3 match is incredible, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58
  - 83457 11y ago
    thanks for this. I played quake live for a couple months solid last year and just couldn't make a dent against anyone in duels except other new players even though i was working hard to improve
wainstead 11y ago
Jane McGonical goes into this in her new book Superbetter too. She singles out Luminosity.
- thret 11y ago
  My parents swear by Luminosity, are they wasting their time?
  - throwaway13337 11y ago
    Yes - for the most part improvements in those memory games improve... performance on those memory games. There is a paper showing that Luminosity specifically doesn't help.[0] Our brains are really good at learning to optimize for a very specific task. edit: reference [0] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514001869 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514...
    - Frqy3 11y ago
      As an example of that task specificity, for master level chess players, they are better than amateurs and novices at memorising real chess board layouts, but not significantly better at scrambled board layouts. http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2012/02/15/how-experts-recall-chess-positions/ http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2012/02/15/how-experts-r...
Axsuul 11y ago
With this type of evidence, it can be easy to justify spending even more hours playing video games. However, everything in moderation. It's very easy to take it too far when it comes to action video games. Now we should ask, which one is better for your well being in the long run? Action video games tend to be significantly more addicting than its counterpart. Is it worth that repercussion for slightly improved brain function?
- ajuc 11y ago
  > Is it worth that repercussion for slightly improved brain function? It's like reading - it's worth it for the eintertainment, and the benefits are nice bonus. And it's easy to lose too much time on it. But I wouldn't switch from reading fiction to reading encyclopedia to be "safer from book addiction".
Ohtrahddis 11y ago
Those who are interested in some discussion about games may find extra credits youtube channel interesting. This particular episode mentions the previous study on violent video games, and talks about how maybe video games actually help make people more empathetic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fftjo1CepQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fftjo1CepQE
SCAQTony 11y ago
In other words it suggests penalties trump rewards. It seems to work that way with addictions too: http://medcitynews.com/2015/05/to-quit-smoking-turns-out-penalties-work-better-than-reward-incentives/ http://medcitynews.com/2015/05/to-quit-smoking-turns-out-pen.... That is to say: I suspect the "penalty" of getting "killed" in a humiliating fashion thus thwarting a goal is more of a motivation than the reward of hearing a voice say, "good job for memorizing that numerical pattern."
- johnloeber 11y ago
  If that turns out to be true, then that's a huge finding. That's especially considering the fact that modern psychology/therapy is generally recommending positive reinforcement (treats) as opposed to negative reinforcement (penalties) for teaching/conditioning behavior. This could lead us to revise commonplace methods for teaching children, training pets, and for managing individuals and groups in general.
  - mrob 11y ago
    It's possible that the source of the negative reinforcement matters. In games it comes from either the environment, or from another person who's part of a (temporary) outgroup. If you simulate aggression towards that person you will be rewarded. In schools it comes from another person in a position of authority over you, and if you act aggressively towards them the punishment will escalate to you point where you are almost guaranteed to lose.
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  No, it could also be the immediate, continuous feedback. Or that they're actually more mentally demanding. Or that they require lots of different parts to work well together, rather than trying to focus on just one thing.
- ajuc 11y ago
  Simplification. People don't play counterstrike or starcraft to not get killed in it - not playing achieves the same. They play to compete in something they consider "cool". And competing without the possibility of losing is pointless.

39 points by frostmatthew 11y ago

"Action video games" is the fascinating academic-grant-ready rebranding of violent video games, in case anyone is confused what this is talking about. Is there a stigma associated with violent video games? Of course. No academic institutions are funding developmental psychology research into violent video games the way they fund the study of educational games. This is despite violent video games being way more appealing to children. Beyond psych? More people have inhabited the Office level in Counter-Strike for more combined time than any office building ever built in Manhattan. But you'll never read about video game architecture in an architecture journal, design blog, etc. It's a universal aversion to serious conversations about games just because they involve shooting aliens. Can development psychologists get out of the ghetto of investigating games' impact on violence or attention deficit? Maybe. Studies like the one done in this article are a good step forward. But this study still indicts video games for something, just different video games. The improvement-in-vision studies are on the right track, but they are at this point half a decade old. Surely someone has some fresh ideas. Those game developers haven't read a single page of psychology literature. Yet they have succeeded in massive, non-chemical cognitive behavioral modifications. You'd think someone could make an academic career out of this.

gilgoomesh 11y ago
While the article did mention first (Wolfenstein: The New Order) and third (Grand Theft Auto V) person shooters as "action video games", the term could easily apply to games like Rocket League which – while similarly fast-reflex online multiplayer games – are violence free. The specific description of action video games in the article is: > complex 3D settings, that feature quickly moving targets that pop in and out of view, that necessitate substantial visual processing of the periphery, that include large amounts of clutter and task-irrelevant objects, that require the player to consistently switch between highly focused and highly distributed attention, and that require the player to make rapid, but accurate decisions There is no mention of violence or shooting.
ajuc 11y ago
> Those game developers haven't read a single page of psychology literature How do you know that? I've been on gamedev conference where developers talked about monetization strategies for mobile free to play games, and it was basicaly dark psychology course (was revolting and fascinating at the same time).

hacker_9 11y ago

Is this much of a surprise? 'Action video games' these days take place in basically real life 3d simulations - any problems you solve in them can basically map directly into the real world (travelling from A to B, resource/time management, awareness of what your enemies/competition are thinking/doing etc)

strictnein 11y ago
When my wife asks me why I enjoy FPSs (Titanfall, Call of Duty, Halo, etc), I try to explain to her that its like the fastest game of chess imaginable. The difference being that you can only see a couple of the pieces on the board and you have to try to keep track of where you think the remaining pieces are in your mind.

hmahncke 11y ago

PDF link to actual scientific publication here: http://bbs.sagepub.com/content/2/1/101.full.pdf+html http://bbs.sagepub.com/content/2/1/101.full.pdf+html It should be mentioned that the article is a review article and doesn't provide any actual head-to-head comparisons between "action video games" and "brain games." In addition, one of the authors (Aaron Seitz) developed a cognitive training program (Ultimeyes) that is much more like a "brain game" than an "action video game" A summary from the article than its title is "A new article argues that it is the specific content, dynamics, and mechanics of individual games that determine their effects on the brain and that action video games might have particularly positive benefits."

Asbostos 11y ago

It's unfortunate that video games need research to make them seem worthwhile, but sports are widely accepted as being good things for kids to do. Even though I'd bet there's a negative correlation between time spent playing sport and academic performance, at least at the more extreme ends of the spectrum. At high school, it's not even good for preventing obesity since the most lasting obesity starts in childhood before teenage years. Anecdotally, I know several people who played competitive sport at high school then quickly became overweight afterwards apparently because they maintained the high-energy eating habits they needed as a teenager.

eru 11y ago
> It's unfortunate that video games need research to make them seem worthwhile, [...] Just wait a generation. I am willing to bet however, that your opinion on sports is too pessimistic. At low to medium levels sports probably helps academic performance, because it helps everything. (But for a proper bet, we'd have to agree on more precise terms, and odds we are offering, and an amount, and then go ahead and do some research.)
- Asbostos 11y ago
  Yea, you're probably right about moderate levels of sport. On a very direct level, faster blood circulation from exercise improves brain function. There's probably also some motivation/self-esteem feelings it helps with as well. I wonder if in a generation we'll see posters encouraging kids to play video games instead of blobbing out in front of the Facebook or whatever the new bogeyman is. I get the feeling that using a computer (or phone or whatever it is) is becoming accepted as default OK and now it's the specific types of app that can be "good" or "bad".
- mhurron 11y ago
  > Just wait a generation. There are still plenty of people who have grown up with games as a normal part of life that look down on those who play them as wasting time and hold it as a badge of honour when they no longer play them, as though this means they have now matured. Modern sports grew out of gentleman's games in universities, the whole culture was something that people looked up to as civilized before it came to be something everyone 'participated' in. > At low to medium levels sports probably helps academic performance I don't believe the parent was talking about actually playing sports, which would help, but was more talking about the Sunday Afternoon Football game where it is socially acceptable to sit and watch the game and associated commentary for hours

83457 11y ago

I don't know about action games in general but I definitely feel like highly competitive games (esports) have an extreme mental side to them. I'm thinking about some of the top games like Counter-Strike, League of Legends, Dota, Starcraft. Most of the difficulty in those games is decision making, being able to keep track of multiple things at once and, at least in the team games, be able to gather information about your opponent and communicate that to your teammates effectively. edit: and you get good at those by playing and practicing that one game for thousands of hours

rnet85 11y ago
Indeed, like the amount of planning and strategy in this Q3 match is incredible, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58
- 83457 11y ago
  thanks for this. I played quake live for a couple months solid last year and just couldn't make a dent against anyone in duels except other new players even though i was working hard to improve

wainstead 11y ago

Jane McGonical goes into this in her new book Superbetter too. She singles out Luminosity.

thret 11y ago
My parents swear by Luminosity, are they wasting their time?
- throwaway13337 11y ago
  Yes - for the most part improvements in those memory games improve... performance on those memory games. There is a paper showing that Luminosity specifically doesn't help.[0] Our brains are really good at learning to optimize for a very specific task. edit: reference [0] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514001869 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514...
  - Frqy3 11y ago
    As an example of that task specificity, for master level chess players, they are better than amateurs and novices at memorising real chess board layouts, but not significantly better at scrambled board layouts. http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2012/02/15/how-experts-recall-chess-positions/ http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2012/02/15/how-experts-r...

Axsuul 11y ago

With this type of evidence, it can be easy to justify spending even more hours playing video games. However, everything in moderation. It's very easy to take it too far when it comes to action video games. Now we should ask, which one is better for your well being in the long run? Action video games tend to be significantly more addicting than its counterpart. Is it worth that repercussion for slightly improved brain function?

ajuc 11y ago
> Is it worth that repercussion for slightly improved brain function? It's like reading - it's worth it for the eintertainment, and the benefits are nice bonus. And it's easy to lose too much time on it. But I wouldn't switch from reading fiction to reading encyclopedia to be "safer from book addiction".

Ohtrahddis 11y ago

Those who are interested in some discussion about games may find extra credits youtube channel interesting. This particular episode mentions the previous study on violent video games, and talks about how maybe video games actually help make people more empathetic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fftjo1CepQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fftjo1CepQE

SCAQTony 11y ago

In other words it suggests penalties trump rewards. It seems to work that way with addictions too: http://medcitynews.com/2015/05/to-quit-smoking-turns-out-penalties-work-better-than-reward-incentives/ http://medcitynews.com/2015/05/to-quit-smoking-turns-out-pen.... That is to say: I suspect the "penalty" of getting "killed" in a humiliating fashion thus thwarting a goal is more of a motivation than the reward of hearing a voice say, "good job for memorizing that numerical pattern."

johnloeber 11y ago
If that turns out to be true, then that's a huge finding. That's especially considering the fact that modern psychology/therapy is generally recommending positive reinforcement (treats) as opposed to negative reinforcement (penalties) for teaching/conditioning behavior. This could lead us to revise commonplace methods for teaching children, training pets, and for managing individuals and groups in general.
- mrob 11y ago
  It's possible that the source of the negative reinforcement matters. In games it comes from either the environment, or from another person who's part of a (temporary) outgroup. If you simulate aggression towards that person you will be rewarded. In schools it comes from another person in a position of authority over you, and if you act aggressively towards them the punishment will escalate to you point where you are almost guaranteed to lose.
tbrownaw 11y ago
No, it could also be the immediate, continuous feedback. Or that they're actually more mentally demanding. Or that they require lots of different parts to work well together, rather than trying to focus on just one thing.
ajuc 11y ago
Simplification. People don't play counterstrike or starcraft to not get killed in it - not playing achieves the same. They play to compete in something they consider "cool". And competing without the possibility of losing is pointless.