Video games

Playing video games can affect your memory and mood

Brain fitness program produces working memory improvement in older adults

August, 2010

A new study shows improvement in visual working memory in older adults following ten hours training with a commercial brain training program. The performance gains correlated with changes in brain activity.

While brain training programs can certainly improve your ability to do the task you’re practicing, there has been little evidence that this transfers to other tasks. In particular, the holy grail has been very broad transfer, through improvement in working memory. While there has been some evidence of this in pilot programs for children with ADHD, a new study is the first to show such improvement in older adults using a commercial brain training program.

A study involving 30 healthy adults aged 60 to 89 has demonstrated that ten hours of training on a computer game designed to boost visual perception improved perceptual abilities significantly, and also increased the accuracy of their visual working memory to the level of younger adults. There was a direct link between improved performance and changes in brain activity in the visual association cortex.

The computer game was one of those developed by Posit Science. Memory improvement was measured about one week after the end of training. The improvement did not, however, withstand multi-tasking, which is a particular problem for older adults. The participants, half of whom underwent the training, were college educated. The training challenged players to discriminate between two different shapes of sine waves (S-shaped patterns) moving across the screen. The memory test (which was performed before and after training) involved watching dots move across the screen, followed by a short delay and then re-testing for the memory of the exact direction the dots had moved.

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Children with home computers likely to have lower test scores

July, 2010

An American study suggests that getting a home computer can have a negative effect on reading and math scores in middle-grade students, particularly those from disadvantaged families.

Data from North Carolina's mandated End-of-Grade tests (2000-2005), which includes student reports on how frequently they use a home computer for schoolwork, watch TV or read for pleasure, reveals that students in grades five through eight (c.10-13), particularly those from disadvantaged families, tended to have lower reading and math scores after they got a home computer. The researchers suggest that the greater negative effect in disadvantaged households may reflect less parental monitoring.

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[1635] Vigdor, J. L., & Ladd H. F.
(2010).  Scaling the Digital Divide: Home Computer Technology and Student Achievement.
National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series. No. 16078,

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Video games threaten kids' attention span

July, 2010

A large study of elementary school children and college students has found greater screen time (TV and video games) is associated with more attention problems.

A study following 1,323 children in Grades 3 to 5 and 210 college students has found that children who exceeded two hours per day of screen time (TV and video games) were 1.5 to two times more likely to be considered above average in attention problems by their teachers compared to children who met the guideline. A similar association between screen media time and attention problems (self-reported) was found for the college students. A study earlier this year found U.S. children aged eight to 18 devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes per day to entertainment media (http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia012010nr.cfm ).

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Video games help stroke victims recover motor function

March, 2010

A pilot study suggests that video games for the Nintendo Wii could help stroke victims recover fine and gross motor function after a stroke.

A pilot study suggests that video games for the Nintendo Wii could help stroke victims recover fine motor function (such as finger dexterity) and gross motor function (such as arm movements) two months after a stroke. The ten patients randomly assigned to playing these games for about six hours over the course of two weeks showed significantly better recovery, and none of the adverse effects (like nausea or dizziness) that were reported in the other group assigned to recreational games such as cards or the block-stacking game Jenga. A clinical trial is now underway.

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The research was presented February 25 at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference.

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