A team led by Professor of Psychology Ian Spence at the University of Toronto (Canada) has shown that playing an action video game, even for a short period of time, causes changes in brain activity and improves visual attention . The work is published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience .
To reach this conclusion, 25 subjects who had never played video games spent 10 hours in sessions of one or two hours playing with a console, either a game in which they had to shoot (16) or a three-dimensional puzzle (9). Before and after his brain waves were recorded. Subjects who played the action video game showed obvious improvement in visual attention span and changes in brain waves linked to the ability to suppress distracting information. Those who played puzzles on the screen did not experience brain changes. This is the first time that a study shows that video games cause direct changes in the thinking organ (and not that previous differences drive us to play more or less in front of a screen, as previous research pointed out).
“Having developed visual attention is crucial in many daily activities,” emphasizes Ian Spence, co-author of the work. “It is necessary to drive a car, to play sports, to detect changes on a computer monitor, or even if we try to avoid falling walking through a children’s room with the floor full of toys.”
