Sunday, October 3, 2010

U.S. Navy: Video Games Improve Brains, "Fluid Intelligence"

The cognitive effects of certain video-game-style activities are not only impressive but can last a couple of years, a researcher for the Navy recently explained.
If gamers don't want to believe that video games have an effect on them — at least any effect that will cause them to do antisocial things — will they accept research that suggests games make their brains work better?
Here's Ray Perez, program officer for the Office of Naval Research's warfighter performance department:


"We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players,"
"We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory," he said. They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player's field of vision compared to people who don't play video games, he added. 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 synchro
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nized with other neural networks in the brain.


Read the full story here http://kotaku.com/5457590/us-navy-video-games-improve-brains-fluid-intelligence


26 comments:

  1. If that's the case then I should be like a human hard-drive.

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  2. Nice, but this does not account for my laziness?

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  3. That would be awesome if the fact is true in the heading !

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  4. Wish I could've shown my mom this years ago xD

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  5. One more reason to play video games.

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  6. Organizations should incorporate video games into their training, this would attract more people into joining!

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  7. i play COD all the time, i knew it was making sharp, i think ready for the battlefield lol

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  8. Playing video games definitely improved my problem solving abilities. I hope more of these studies come to the public eye instead of Jack Thompson's garbage.

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  9. Kinda makes me feel better over having spent most of my childhood playing games, social part did not benefit that much though :p

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  10. Now I have the perfect excuse for my wife. lol

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  11. I believe it... it kinda drives home the reason why the government is one of the largest funders of Virtual Reality research, b/c if they can simulate an immersive situation, they would be better prepared. But... you know... it's a preprogrammed environment. The system can only be as smart as its creator. 8D ~~

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  12. the army incorporate video game into their treining also nive blog
    *following*

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  13. think they need to worry more about war than playing games to be hoenst!!

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  14. i always thought fluid intelligence came in a can marked 'beer'

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  15. Short-term memory i really need a little bit of that.

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  16. This is very interesting news, but it's still quite sad that some people still recognize video games to be the scum of entertainment. Hopefully this will shut them up. :P

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  17. All those hours of gaming finally pay dividends.

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