We all know video games are a waste of time and rot your brain, right? Not so, says the U.S. Office of Naval Research. In fact, adult gamers can see increased “perceptual abilities,” increased short-term memory, longer focus and expanded field of vision compared to non-gamers. Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR’s warfighter performance department, said that they’ve found gamers “perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players.”
While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more synchronized with other neural networks in the brain.
“We’re now looking for the underlying neural mechanisms that are responsible for these changes in behavior and in abilities,” Perez said. “We’re using various kinds of neural imaging techniques like [functional magnetic resonance imaging] that identify different areas of the brain that show activity when you’re performing certain tasks, and we can begin to look at what area of the brain is active during the processing of video information.
“We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to stimuli in the outside world,” he added.
Given these findings, the ONR is looking for ways to incorporate “video game technology” into learning tools, ranging from PDAs to simulators and virtual environments.
This story got me thinking of a recent feature in Wired about how we’re seeing a generation of NFL players who were raised with John Madden Football, a very in-depth football simulator. These players are taking strategies they learned in the game and applying them on the field, to the point where coaches are actually encouraging their teams to play Madden in their off-time to learn more about football strategy. Some coaches attribute the video game to the high level of success young quarterbacks are seeing in the NFL, who traditionally needed a few years to learn enough to perform well in the league.
Similarly, we’re also seeing young soldiers who have played military strategy and first-person shooter games their entire lives. The U.S. Army even has its own such game, America’s Army, which it distributes for free for recruiting purposes. Given the military’s increased reliance on unmanned drones and robots, it’s only natural that gamers would take easily to remotely interfacing with these machines. But would, say, and infantryman’s experience with a FPS like Modern Warfare 2 affect the way they actually behave in combat?