Neuropsychologists of the
Ruhr-Universität Bochum let video gamers compete against non-gamers in a
learning competition. During the test, the video gamers performed significantly
better and showed an increased brain activity in the brain areas that are relevant
for learning. The research team studied 17 volunteers who according to their
own statement, played action-based games on the computer or a console for more
than 15 hours a week. The control group consisted of 17 volunteers who didn't
play video games on a regular basis. Both teams did the so-called weather
prediction task, a well-established test to investigate the learning of
probabilities. The researchers simultaneously recorded the brain activity of
the participants via magnetic resonance imaging.
The participants were shown a
combination of three cue cards with different symbols. They should estimate
whether the card combination predicted sun or rain and got a feedback if their
choice was right or wrong right away. The volunteers gradually learned, on the
basis of the feedback, which card combination stands for which weather
prediction. The combinations were thereby linked to higher or lower
probabilities for sun and rain. According to the questionnaire results, the
gamers were notably better in combining the cue cards with the weather
predictions than the control group. They fared even better with cue card
combinations that had a high uncertainty such as a combination that predicted
60 percent rain and 40 percent sunshine.
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