Study: Gamers Better, Faster At Interpreting Visual Input
from the look-over-there! dept
As someone who considers video games my primary source of entertainment media, I'm among a group that tends to cringe whenever I hear about the next study done concerning video games. Whether it's agenda-driven crackpots claiming a link to violence, despite many other studies showing the opposite, or even positive studies on games and children that you just know will produce a backlash, these things tend to get people riled up. So it's somewhat nice to see a study that doesn't take on the more ideological positions normally discussed, but instead just looks at one positive effect gamers experience.
I'm talking about a recent study out of Duke that suggests gamers simply see the world differently, or at least get more out of visual perception than those who don't play games.
"Gamers see the world differently," said Greg Appelbaum, an assistant professor of psychiatry in the Duke School of Medicine. "They are able to extract more information from a visual scene."This seems to jive nicely with common sense. Video games are visual medium that specifically tasks players to read what they see and react accordingly. Still, with all the talk you tend to hear about how the youth of the world is turning into a zombie army of button mashers, it might be easy to lose perspective on all the effects, particularly those that are positive. What the study essentially is saying is that gamers tend to be more observant and better able to make quick decisions based on what they see than non-gamers. There is, quite obviously, a host of real-world arenas where this kind of skill is valuable.
Each participant was run though a visual sensory memory task that flashed a circular arrangement of eight letters for just one-tenth of a second. After a delay ranging from 13 milliseconds to 2.5 seconds, an arrow appeared, pointing to one spot on the circle where a letter had been. Participants were asked to identify which letter had been in that spot. At every time interval, intensive players of action video games outperformed non-gamers in recalling the letter.
More interestingly, this isn't simply a function of memory retention. The brain of the gamer is truly trained specifically to see more, not remember more, and to exact a proper decision for what is around them. The authors of the study are planning on following this up with a look into brain-scans and MRIs, so perhaps we'll learn even more about how and why gamers see the world differently.
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Filed Under: perception, studies, video games, visual input
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A word of caution.
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Re: A word of caution.
I don't think of it any different from a football goalie who seems to have the ability to dive the right way on a penalty shot or from a deflected ball, without having to process all that is involved. It doesn't make them particularly any smarter, just that they have a small subset of skills fine tuned and honed for a single purpose.
The number of real world applications for a fast thumb isn't very high, but I guess a gamer would think otherwise.
PS: Sorry if this post appears far out of sync with the discussion. Techdirt has chosen to censor my posting by forcing every post into moderation. You guys should consider that to be a warning, don't disagree with the man, he will censor you.
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Re: Re: A word of caution.
Also, regarding the last line, the public flagging comments as spam/harassing/not worth reading is 'censorship' in the same way as adblock or a spam filter is: nothing more than saving people from having crap shoved in their faces while reading/browsing, which you may notice is not even close to the actual definition of censorship.
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Re: Re: Re: A word of caution.
It's called censorship, because about 50% or more of my posts just don't make it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A word of caution.
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Re: Re: A word of caution.
Yes, we could just make stuff up that isn't supported by any evidence.
It doesn't make them particularly any smarter
Nobody said it does.
The number of real world applications for a fast thumb isn't very high, but I guess a gamer would think otherwise.
Then again, if you even read the article (even just the headline), it's about extracting visual information and has nothing to do with "a fast thumb".
PS: Sorry if this post appears far out of sync with the discussion.
It actually appears to be making stuff up in a vain attempt to discredit absolutely everything Techdirt writes.
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Re: A word of caution.
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Re: A word of caution.
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Re:
/sarc
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Re:
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Re:
The vast majority of IQ questions rely on pattern recognition questions.
Personal example my uncle has an incredibly high IQ (measured by MENSA), but has been known on occasions to call an electrician to his house when a light-bulb has blown, not what I would call smart
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Re:
I do remember a study showing that medical students that were gamers were more proficient at operating surgical robots and instruments than their non gamer counterparts.
So forgive me for being a bit skeptical about the assumption that IQ relates to physical time responses to visual input.
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Re: Re:
You should be. No specific study was cited, so we don't know what it really said. Sound bite summaries like "Higher IQ is correlated with better reaction times" are usually misleading to the point of just being lies.
Also, it is well established that there are several different kinds of intelligence which are independent of each other. There is a longstanding, ongoing debate about how many kinds there are, but no debate that there's a multiplicity.
One of those kinds of "physical intelligence." Athletes are typically strong in this, and it covers the ability to use your body effectively. Reaction time may very well be correlated with this. I don't remember seeing any correlation between reaction time and the (worthless) measure of general IQ.
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How many gamers does it take to change a light bulb?
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Re: How many gamers does it take to change a light bulb?
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Re: Re: How many gamers does it take to change a light bulb?
In my experience, about half of them would be complaining about how the other one sucks (despite changing the light bulb better than them) and the other half would call him gay slurs.
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The beauty of it, is that it is an acquired skill.
Games are good to improve reaction times to visual stimuli, and hand coordination.
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Wait...
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I'm confused
Oh wait, that's the police and military.
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Re: I'm confused
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Re: Re: I'm confused
Not in New York, anyway.
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jibe, not jive
but you meant http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jibe
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IQ denialism
"But IQ is a load of tosh anyway. Depending on which set of tests you try you get staggeringly different results."
No. All IQ tests and all other mental tests measure the same thing (g-factor = general intelligence) but to different degrees (their g-loadedness). All mental tests correlate positively.
"All IQ tests show is that you can do an IQ test, nothing to do with "intelligence"."
A claimed lack of validity (inability to predict other things; only being about 'test smartness' etc.). Flatly contradicted by the evidence. IQ scores (g-factor even better) is the best predictor for many areas of life, most importantly education level.
" The vast majority of IQ questions rely on pattern recognition questions."
This is probably true, that's because pattern recognition ability is very closely related to intelligence.
" Personal example my uncle has an incredibly high IQ (measured by MENSA), but has been known on occasions to call an electrician to his house when a light-bulb has blown, not what I would call smart"
Anecdotes are not important.
"How higher IQ correlates to great peripheral view and time reactions to visual stimuli?
I do remember a study showing that medical students that were gamers were more proficient at operating surgical robots and instruments than their non gamer counterparts.
So forgive me for being a bit skeptical about the assumption that IQ relates to physical time responses to visual input."
It is well known among experts and very well replicated. See Arthur Jensen's Clocking the mind.
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Arthur_R._Jensen_Clocking_the_Mind_Mental_ChronBook os.org_.pdf
" You should be. No specific study was cited, so we don't know what it really said. Sound bite summaries like "Higher IQ is correlated with better reaction times" are usually misleading to the point of just being lies."
No 'sound bite', it is a empirically very well replicated finding. See above reference.
" Also, it is well established that there are several different kinds of intelligence which are independent of each other. There is a longstanding, ongoing debate about how many kinds there are, but no debate that there's a multiplicity."
Nothing could be further form the truth. There is about zero research going into multiple intelligence 'theories'. And when actually tested, they are not independent of each other.
See http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=3677 and http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=3889
"One of those kinds of "physical intelligence." Athletes are typically strong in this, and it covers the ability to use your body effectively. Reaction time may very well be correlated with this. I don't remember seeing any correlation between reaction time and the (worthless) measure of general IQ."
There is no such thing as "physical intelligence", and no standard tests to measure this.
For someone so dismissive of IQ testing, one would have assumed that you had at least read Wikipedia! Alas, this is clearly not the case.
For those claims I made above without citing specific literature, consult any textbook on the topic, or other introductory reading. Here are some:
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Intelligence-a-very-short-introduction.pdf
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfr edson/reprints/2002notamystery.pdf
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/The-g-factor-th e-science-of-mental-ability-Arthur-R.-Jensen.pdf
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/4 2937846-The-g-Factor-General-Intelligence-and-Its-Implications-Chris-Brand-Race-Difference-IQ-School -Grades-Exam-Results-Educational-Achievement-Alex-Jon.pdf
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video gamers
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