Your brain on games
There’s an article on CNet about measuring the size of a few areas of the brain, and comparing them to your success at different aspects of playing a specific game. This was a study done at UI by a host of research groups.
Researchers found that players with a larger caudate nucleus and putamen did best on the variable priority training, while players who had a larger nucleus accumbens did better than their counterparts in the early stages of the training period, regardless of their training group. This was unsurprising, since the nucleus accumbens is part of the brain’s reward center, and a person’s motivation for excelling at a video game includes the pleasure that results from achieving a specific goal.
This sense of achievement is likely highest in the earliest stages of learning, Erickson said: “This study tells us a lot about how the brain works when it is trying to learn a complex task. We can use information about the brain to predict who is going to learn certain tasks at a more rapid rate.”
via Want to be a better gamer? Size matters | Health Tech – CNET News.
The science keeps validating large chunks of A Theory of Fun… The article, though, focuses on size and has an emphasis on a sort of genetic predestination:
Research has already shown that expert gamers outperform novices across several measures of attention and perception, while other studies have found that training novices on video games for 20-plus hours rarely results in measurable cognitive benefits–a contradiction that suggests that brain structure itself, not training, could predict gaming abilities, according to the study.
That would be new research I need to track down, if so — the studies I have read repeatedly mention the brain’s plasticity and the measurable effect that training has.
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“That would be new research I need to track down, if so — the studies I have read repeatedly mention the brain’s plasticity and the measurable effect that training has.”
Perhaps – just perhaps – the reporter got this bit wrong? It’s been known to happen… 🙂
Yeah, this one is making the rounds today. I think there’s something there in the distinction between doing well on a game because you’re chasing rewards versus doing well because you’re learning the more complex core mechanics (and/or exploits, maps, etc.). Games like Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer probably appeal on both levels and the best players are those who
persist to excel at the latter.
“Research has already shown that expert gamers outperform novices across several measures of attention and perception, while other studies have found that training novices on video games for 20-plus hours rarely results in measurable cognitive benefits–a contradiction that suggests that brain structure itself, not training, could predict gaming abilities, according to the study.”
Why is it a contradiction? Does an effect have to either be due entirely to brain structure or due entirely to training?
Having re-read your book yesterday in preparation for a book group discussion about it, images of a cartoon man swinging across an alligator-infested river came to mind when I read about the research! With his brain growing. 🙂
Hey Raph – consistent with Adrian’s comment … I don’t see this as a necessary contradiction.
Training can absolutely improve performance, but genetic pre-disposition may outweigh the influence of training – especially relative to “measurable cognitive benefit”.
This may no be enough time to to cause any measurable cognitive benefits.
@Adrian, Jon; It’s a little weird, because other studies have demonstrated cognitive benefits as a result of “training regimens” using video games. Without providing a direct link to said studies (and I certainly haven’t seen any studies that talk specifically about a failure for games to provide cognitive changes) it contradicts things which show definite perceptual changes as a result of training: http://dept.wofford.edu/neuroscience/NeuroSeminar/pdfFall2008/green-videogame.pdf
Yes, structure and experience do play a role in the over all ability of a person, so the concept isn’t inherently contradictory. It’s just that that line, without referenced support, is out there all by itself, blissfully ignoring studies that do demonstrate the effects of training and not providing any evidence that there is, in fact, no benefit other than by an assertion. Makes you wonder what you missed, or if they made a mistake.
Because if there are studies that do show that, I’d like to see them too. It’d add a lot to the conversation.
At CNet today on the same page are two different articles. The first from ONR claims that gamers make better soldiers. The second, a UK study, claims more injuries are reported from kids sitting in chairs playing games than from climbing trees.
Ok, who’s fibbing?