Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Enhanced attention skills in video game players.

The July issue of Neuropsychologia offers yet another article, by Dye et al., on how video games enhance attentional resources:
Previous research suggests that action video game play improves attentional resources, allowing gamers to better allocate their attention across both space and time. In order to further characterize the plastic changes resulting from playing these video games, we administered the Attentional Network Test (ANT) to action game players and non-playing controls aged between 7 and 22 years. By employing a mixture of cues and flankers, the ANT provides measures of how well attention is allocated to targets as a function of alerting and orienting cues, and to what extent observers are able to filter out the influence of task irrelevant information flanking those targets. The data suggest that action video game players of all ages have enhanced attentional skills that allow them to make faster correct responses to targets, and leaves additional processing resources that spill over to process distractors flanking the targets.

3 comments:

  1. I knew it! Addicting Games have something to give aside from the fun. Attention to details is one.

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  2. I think this is correct, I founded many researches about games and how this affect kids and how they also improves their respond and their memories too, but we need always to remember that games too much can also hurt.

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  3. I read this before. This was the research of Dye MW, Green CS, Bavelier D for the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester. They also said that it improved reflex and eye movement as well.

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