A space-exploring robot crashes
on a distant planet. In order to gather the pieces of its damaged spaceship, it
needs to build emotional rapport with the local alien inhabitants. The aliens
speak a different language but their facial expressions are remarkably
human like. This fantastical scenario is the premise of a video game developed
for middle schoolers by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to study
whether video games can boost kids' empathy, and to understand how learning
such skills can change neural connections in the brain.
Results reveal for the first time
that, in as few as two weeks, kids who played a video game designed to train
empathy showed greater connectivity in brain networks related to empathy and
perspective taking. Some also showed altered neural networks commonly linked to
emotion regulation, a crucial skill that this age group is beginning to
develop. On average, youth between the ages of 8 and 18 rack up more than 70
minutes of video gameplay daily, according to data from the Kaiser Family
Foundation. The research was funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation.
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