Go ahead, let your teenagers play another few minutes of Tetris, that simple-yet-addictive puzzle game; it may well be good for their brain. Researchers have new evidence that playing Tetris makes a developing brain more efficient and thicker in certain regions.
The small study was conducted by neuroscientist Richard Haier, who was one of the first neuroscientists to explore the effects of video games on the brain. Back in 1992, Haier used brain scans to discover that some parts of the brain actually used less glucose as the players became more skilled at the game. The “Tetris effect” illustrated how video-game training could make brains work more efficiently – an idea that eventually led to a whole host of brain-training games [MSNBC]. For the new study, Haier updated his work by using newer, more sophisticated brain scanning technology to look for changes in the brains of adolescent girls after three months of Tetris playing. Adolescent girls were chosen because their brains were still developing, and because they were presumed to have less experience with video games than boys.
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Some kids lie and steal to get an opportunity to play a thrilling video game, while others say they have to spend an ever increasing amount of time playing games to get the same level of enjoyment, and feel irritable when they can’t play. All these behaviors, recorded in a new survey of young gamers, are actually symptoms of addiction to video games, psychologist Douglas Gentile argues. “I think we’re at the same place now with video gaming as we were with alcoholism 40 years ago,” said Gentile, noting that decades of research finally showed that alcoholism is a disease [HealthDay News].
The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, surveyed more than 1,000 American kids ranging in age from 8 to 18. Gentile used a questionnaire adapted from a set of questions used to diagnose compulsive gambling in adults, and found that almost one in ten respondents showed signs of “pathological gaming,” meaning that they exhibited at least six of the 11 criteria of addiction. Gentile claims that he started his research with doubts about the possibility of addiction. “I thought this was parental histrionics — that kids are playing a lot and parents don’t understand the motivation, so they label it an addiction,” he said. “It turns out that I was wrong” [Washington Post].
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Who says shoot-’em-up video games are a waste of time? A new study has found that playing action video games dramatically increases the players’ ability to detect subtle shades of gray. Says lead Daphne Bavelier: “Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery — somehow changing the optics of the eye…. [But when] people play action games, they’re changing the brain’s pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it,” Bavelier said [Reuters]. The study also found that more sedate games that don’t require precisely aimed actions, like The Sims 2, do not confer a similar benefit.
The researchers say that eye doctors could one day write prescriptions for Nintendo: The finding raises the prospect that people with amblyopia, which affects contrast perception, could be treated with games. A trial has begun to test that theory. Amblyopia, sometimes known as “lazy eye”, affects around 3 per cent of people in western populations and happens when the brain fails to correctly register signals from one eye [New Scientist]. Contrast sensitivity, which is crucial for activities such as night driving, is also one of the first elements of vision to be affected by aging.
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Playing the absorbing video game Tetris immediately after a traumatic experience could reduce the most jarring symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the flashbacks in which the distressing memory invades the brain. In an odd new study, researchers showed volunteers ugly images of nasty accidents, crushed-up skulls and bloody entrails from various sources. Then they asked half of them to play Tetris. While the other half apparently did nothing…. The Tetris players apparently suffered significantly fewer nasty memories of those ugly images than did those who were left idle [CNET].
The Tetris players may have experienced fewer flashbacks because they were distracted during a crucial window of opportunity, the few hours after the traumatic incident when the brain is consolidating the memory. Says lead author Emily Holmes: “We wanted to find a way to dampen down flashbacks – the raw sensory images of trauma that are over-represented in the memories of those with PTSD. Tetris may work by competing for the brain’s resources for sensory information. We suggest it specifically interferes with the way sensory memories are laid down in the period after trauma and thus reduces the number of flashbacks that are experienced afterwards” [BBC News]. Playing Tetris could be considered a “cognitive vaccine” against flashbacks, Holmes suggested.
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At the Tokyo Game Show today, a video game player strapped on a headset and, without touching a conventional video game controller, began to kill zombies–using only the power of his mind. Called “Judecca,” the PC game is a zombie-killing first-person-shooter, though it’s really just a proof of concept and not something that’s going to be available to consumers anytime soon [Fox News].
The game was produced by leading Japanese studio Square Enix and makes use of a brainwave-sensing headset from NeuroSky, a San Jose-based company that develops biometric sensors and similar products aimed at the consumer market [PC World]. NeuroSky’s “Mindset” device looks like a big pair of headphones with a single electrode that wraps around to tap the wearer’s forehead; the company says the device uses electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the current state of relaxation or concentration of players.
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