How Video Games Stretch the Limits of Our Visual Attention

Science Daily Article

They are often accused of being distracting, but recent research has found that action packed video games like Halo and Call of Duty can enhance visual attention, the ability that allows us to focus on relevant visual information. This growing body of research, reviewed in WIREs Cognitive Science, suggests that action based games could be used to improve military training, educational approaches, and certain visual deficits.

The review, authored by a group led by Dr Daphne Bavelier from the University of Rochester, focused on the impact video games have on visual attention, the mechanism which allows us to select relevant visual information and suppress irrelevant information, allowing us to function in a world made up of infinite visual data.

While gamers were found to outstrip nongamers in these tests, they also found that not all video games provide the same benefits to attention. Fast-paced, action based games that emphasized rapid responses to visual information and required divided attention seemed to be the only ones that affected attention specifically.

Training studies have also shown improvements in the visual attention of non-gamers given experience playing these video games, establishing that it is the actual video game play that is causing the benefits. This finding that video games can enhance visual attention abilities may have implications for military training and broader education, as well as clinical rehabilitation programs for conditions such as amblyopia.

Well, Im pretty surprised to see an article like this. Most articles Ive read about video games are negative.

Ive heard the military has already used video games for training purposes, so I wouldnt be suprised if more people started using them for help in stuff like reaction speed and visual information.....not like alot of us already play them.....,,

"Fast-paced, action based games that emphasized rapid responses to visual information and required divided attention seemed to be the only ones that affected attention specifically".....Yes, Call of Duty has its benefits, according to this study.

video games are the 1st step to brainwashing... there i said it.

when i play my guitar i see these epic battles and scenery in my head. Maybe its because of the games

Hehe, it may help stimulate the brain in many ways, but it's still just point and click.

heaps fun tho...

and if only you could treat people in real life like you can in COD4... /pb_rcon pb_sv_kick 7 60 You don't Email me back anymore and we never go out. Im breaking up with you... banned for an hour...

then you'd have to change your name to something random and when she comes back, feign ignorance about where badw0lf went...


badw0lf has changed name to Sniper__king
sexy_aussie_chick has joined.
sexy_aussie_chick: Where did badw0lf go?
Sniper__king: I have no idea, I think he was kicked by punkbuster, packet loss... he's a nub anyway...
sexy_aussie_chick: I know, what a loser....


Yup, CoD is a social network all of it's own... Oo

I really think that the effects of video games differ from person to person, and no amount of study is going to comprehensively portray video games as good or bad, objectively.

I know i will be vilified for saying this but,

some people cant play them. They are terrible.

Id love a study where non gamers were given money to play GTA 4 and COD Black Ops over the course of a few weeks. i bet the people whose skill increased would rate the games as more enjoyable, the poorer players, would rate them lower. Its that simple.

I cant play guitar, so I dont. But Tipper Gore isn't singing that the decline of western civilization is because of people playing the guitar.

People that dont enjoy video games lump that mindset, in with the general maligning of anything violent.

I say make all drivers take a test every 5 years, that is as challenging as GTA4. They cant pass, they dont drive. Lets see how deep their concern really goes.

reply to post by Bluesquid


Man I suck at cod, but I laugh at myself, so I win no matter what!

good old klenker has fun.

I'll jump around and get some funky neat frags in, but at the end of the day, I suck.

I dont play these things for ego.. I play them to relax...

and if those idiots dont stop beating me I'll DoS their god damned serv.. I mean, I'll just stop playing!!



btw black ops, is a crappy ps2 style game (sucking all possible things in any given insertable topic) , like WaW it is another treyarch fail, and since IW has now been basically kicked out of the COD franchise, I look foreward to the next real game from their new company. Should be early next year. I hope they focus properly this time and dont sell to a schmucko company.