(Editor’s Note: this 
is one of the Research Executive Briefs that included in SharpBrains’ market report. We asked leading neuroscientists to share findings and implications from their own recent published scientific studies in order to better forecast the development trajectory of emerging applications for cognitive health and brain fitness.)
Brief prepared by: Bjron Hubert-Wallander, Bjorn & Daphne Bavelier, Bavelier Brain & Vision Lab, University of Rochester.
1. Main findings:
Over the past ten years, research conducted by our lab and others has shown that playing fast-paced, action-packed videogames can lead to significant benefits in how well one pays attention and how well one sees. Specifically, our studies have shown that training for as little as ten hours on action video games (like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Unreal Tournament) can lead to measurable enhancements in our ability to spread our attention around the visual field, our ability to keep track of multiple moving objects, and our ability to pick out relevant information from a rapid sequence of visual events. Most recently though, we have shown that action videogame training can also positively affect more basic aspects of vision such as our ability to resolve small details or see faint patterns.
Published in the journal Nature Neuroscience in 2009, one of our studies compared two groups of college-aged males, those who had a history of playing action videogames and those who had very rarely or had never played videogames at all. By analyzing both groups’ performance on a task designed to [Read more…] about Gaming Your Way to Better Vision (Research Executive Brief)
