Cuttings

Game Boys

The visual skills of non-gamers improve dramatically after just ten hours of playing computer games. Research published in Nature Magazine (vol 423) by Professor Daphne Bavelier found that students who played action games such as Grand Theft Auto111, Spiderman and 007 almost daily for six months performed outstandingly in non-gaming visual ability tests. The tests included identifying a target object in a cluttered screen, counting the number of quickly changing objects and recognising identical objects flashed simultaneously. There are possible disadvantages. Bavelier doubts that gaming could improve the sort of sustained and focused attention needed for tasks such as extended reading and some believe that being able to attend to stimuli on the periphery might lead to difficulties in focusing on one thing. The work may in the future be of value to stroke patients and patients who have visual impairments.