Science
FENS Forum 2012: Learning to Learn with Action Gaming
Proteintech resident blogger @DebGrainger provides Twitter coverage of Daphne Bavelier's plenary lecture on action gaming and the brain. The talk, given at the 8th Fens Forum last week in Barcelona, discussed evidence that action gaming is actually good for the brain.
Daphne Bavelier is a cognitive neuroscientist interested in how the brain learns; more specifically, she explores the possibility of making the brain smarter, better and faster by utilizing something called 'broad transfer learning' with a focus on action video gaming (AVG).
Professor Fotini Stylianopoulou, secretary general of FENS introduces Bavalier, #fens_forum2012
Enhance the brain with video action games says neuroscientist Daphne Bavelier fens2012.neurosciences.asso.fr
RT @PerKohler: Daphne Bavelier om hur first person shooters kan användas för inlärning. http://pic.twitter.com/MBB9rvph- (Above: An example of the action video games that feature in Bavelier's research.)
- Why should anyone care so much about this question? Well...
- Add to that the statistic that the game Call of Duty: Black Ops had been played for the equivalent of 68,000 years worldwide after only one month of release and you realize how pervasive gaming is throughout our society...
- Before we get to the proposed benefits though, Bavelier points out that game play in the excess probably negates any positives to be gained from the activity:
Forget "square eyes"?
- Many English-language speakers will have heard permutations of the following phrase, usually uttered by a concerned parent or spouse: "Sit in front of that screen any longer and you'll get square eyes." In other words, you'll pay for the price of your gaming with bad eye-sight. However, the first revelation of Bavelier's FENS Forum talk was that AVG may actually enhance sight!
- (A tweet which was followed by this dire attempt at humor....)
- So how do Bavelier's studies relate AVGs to improved sight? Maybe the subjects just had better sight anyway? Well there is evidence from Dr. Bavelier's lab to show that non-gamers who undergo AVG training for a set number of hours a week also develop the level of enhanced sight demonstrated by their action gaming peers.
- Unfortunately the same benefits are not seen with other types of games...
- Not all games are equal. Action games improve contrast visibility #FENS_forum2012 #games #neuroscience
