Brains on video games

Abstract

The popular press is replete with stories about the effects of video and computer games on the brain. Sensationalist headlines claiming that video games 'damage the brain' or 'boost brain power' do not do justice to the complexities and limitations of the studies involved, and create a confusing overall picture about the effects of gaming on the brain. Here, six experts in the field shed light on our current understanding of the positive and negative ways in which playing video games can affect cognition and behaviour, and explain how this knowledge can be harnessed for educational and rehabilitation purposes. As research in this area is still in its early days, the contributors of this Viewpoint also discuss several issues and challenges that should be addressed to move the field forward.

Cognitive pitfall! Videogame players are not immune to dual-task costs

“…All of the participants, VGPs and NVGPs alike, performed worse during the dual-task condition, and there were no differences in how the VGPs and NVGPs were affected. These findings suggest that while some cognitive skills obtained from extensive gaming may be transferrable (see Bavelier et al, 2011;Green & Bavelier, 2012), under cases of high attentional demand across modalities, VGPs can be just as hurt as NVGPs.…”

Structural and functional neuroplasticity in human learning of spatial routes

“…These participants could therefore be considered novices who were not familiar with playing action video games. This inclusion criterion is more stringent than that used by other researchers (Bavelier et al, 2011) for considering a participant as a non-video game player. It did, however, result in a much higher proportion of female volunteers who met the criteria.…”

Assessing the Impact of “Brain Training” on Changes in Driving Performance, Visual Behavior, and Neuropsychological Measures

“…Transfer of learning has also been documented in cases where an enriched training stimulus is used, such as action video games. Training with such games results in improvements in a wide variety of visual functions, though it should be noted that the detailed environments central to these games are unlike the simpler, more easily parameterized tasks presented in many cognitive training packages (Bavelier et al, 2011).…”