9 reasons to play video games for the benefit of themselves
A Life / / December 19, 2019
Everyone is making fun of the thick sides of gamers and does not tell them about the dangers of video games right in the red eyes. It is not quite fair and not always objective. Let us restore the balance and find that useful is in gaming impartial science.
Fans of shooters make accurate decisions faster
Employees of the University of Rochester conducted a series of studies and concluded that video games develop gamers heightened sensitivity to what is happening around. And it's not limited to virtual worlds. Improving a wide range of generic skills that can be useful in everyday life, such as multi-tasking, reading small text, recognize friends in a crowd or moving around.
In one of experiments It took a few dozen people, aged 18-25 years, far from the world video entertainment. Scientists divided them into two groups, each of which had strum 50 hours. Some play a shooter, and others - in the family simulator. After that, the subjects underwent a series of special tests on the speed of decision-making. The first group to cope with the task 25% faster without sacrificing accuracy of the second.
The authors shed light on the nature of this phenomenon. People make decisions based on probabilities that they are constantly calculate in their heads. The brain accumulates pieces of visual and auditory information, and eventually gathers enough of them now, perceived as an exact solution. Fans of shooters required threshold is reached quickly, because their visual and auditory analyzers have been more effective.
Gamers better control their dreams
Jane gackenbach (Jayne Gackenbach), well-known psychologist in the Canadian University named Grant McEwan, compares video games with dreams, because they both represent alternate reality. Although dreams arise biologically in the human mind, and video - technology, using computers and game consoles, the parallel still relevant.
Based on their research, Jane says that gamers are more common with such an unusual phenomenon of lucid dreaming. In this state, a person realizes that he has a dream, and can to some extent control its content. Scientists directly connect it with experience from the players in the virtual reality.
Jane develops a theme and describes the well-known theory that dreams simulate threatening situations from everyday life. Nightmares help the body to hone his defensive skills in a safe environment, then to apply them in real life situations in case of need. Gackenbach studied reports about the dreams of 35 men and 63 women and found that gamers are more easily perceived in the looming threat of a dream, and sometimes turned over the situation and gave battle hazards. That is, they are converted to a nightmare scenario in amusement raid.
Games make people wiser and kinder
Strategy games can affect humanity, and behavioral thinking gamers in real life. So consider at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose staff created the "Fix" (Quandary) - a learning game for high school students, raises a fundamental question of ethics child.
During the game you run a space colony and allow the dilemmas that arise between the settlers cut off from the earth. Your goal - to understand the details of the dispute, to talk to all parties to the conflict. You have to separate fact from subjective opinions, find common ground and to offer the way out of the situation. And in the game there is no right or wrong decisions. Each side has its own piece of the truth, and you have to understand the position of each settler.
Scientists characterize their play as too didactic and not too serious. They do not think that these games necessarily improve the outlook of people, however, believe that will cause them to reflect on the objective assessment of the real situation.
Video games improve eyesight
High game in the first person the player improve vision. Previously it was thought that the ability to detect small differences in shades of gray can not be trained. But research Bevelir Daphne (Daphne Bavelier) indicate the opposite. The professor found that avid gamers are 58% more receptive to subtle differences in contrast. Typically this effect is achieved through the glasses or eye surgery.
Quick games employ the power of the human visual system, the brain adapts to the new conditions, and skills are transferred to a life outside of the monitor. Moreover, the positive effect remains even two years after the "strings". Daphne believes that video games can be useful in the treatment of amblyopia, characterized by the deterioration of the transmission of the visual image of the brain.
Video games enhance cognitive abilities
Games can restore weakened mental skills in the elderly. This is evidenced by the results experimentConducted within the precincts of the University of California. A group of neuroscientists led by Adam Gezzeli (Adam Gazzaley) developed NeuroRacer, seemingly uncomplicated racing arcade game, in which the left-hand player controls the car and the right responds to emerging signs (or ignore them).
A group of people aged between 60 and 85 years old to play it for six months for 12 hours a month. After that, scientists have tested a number of mental abilities test.
It turned out that the training was not in vain: gamers volunteers better handle multiple tasks simultaneously. This is logical. More surprising was the fact that older people are better remember the information and keep the attention. And the effect persisted for several months after the end of the experiments.
Reinforce the findings and electroencephalogram readings. During training in the brains of people amplified low-frequency theta waves associated with attention. Dr. Gezzeli noted that activity in the prefrontal cortex of the elderly has become similar to the activity in the prefrontal cortex in people younger ages.
Games are improving professional skills
A laparoscope - a complex medical device designed for diagnostic procedures and surgical operations on the abdomen through a small diameter hole organs from 5 to 10 mm. Given the complexity of manipulation and time constraints, the training of qualified personnel for laparoscopy becomes very crucial and costly task.
The medical team of the University of Rome La Sapienza conducted curious experiment and found that the conventional home console may be a good simulator for scalpel masters.
Forty-two graduate students total, cardiovascular and endoscopic surgery were pre-session tests laparoscopic simulator, after which they were randomly assigned to two teams. Over the next four weeks, half of the trainees played in quite the usual game on the Nintendo Wii. Second session related tests showed that all participants improved their skills. However, gamers have achieved the best results for 13 of the 16 performance indicators discussed.
Scientists have found that game consoles can be useful, inexpensive and entertaining young specialists training methods. Of course, in addition to standard surgical education and simulators based on actual operations.
Games help children learn to read
About 10% of children suffer from dyslexia - the neurological disorder characterized by difficulties with accurate and / or fluent word recognition and lack of ability to read and write. Traditional treatment of dyslexia - a long and laborious process, so scientists are looking for alternatives. For example, the Italian doctor from the University of Padua offer igroterapiya.
Scientists tested the reading and attention skills in two groups of children with dyslexia before and after they played in the conventional and high-speed games for nine sessions of 80 minutes a day. It was found that the video game genre, "shooter" improved reading speed without sacrificing accuracy more than one year of study at ease, and gave results similar to the year dedicated treatment.
Video games improve motor skills of preschool children
In a small study, Australian scientists compared some motor skills in children, playing interactive video games and passive.
Deakin University employees evaluated the physical activity level in 53 children aged between three and six years in the context of the time they devote to video games. It turned out, after the games in Wii Nintendo kids better hit the ball, catch the thrown objects and make the throws, they improve hand-eye coordination. Differences in the ability to run and jump is not found.
Biotic games taught complex things
Biotic games - video game, in which you control a real organism instead of the usual virtual object.
unusual genre invented biophysicist at Stanford University Ingmar H. Riedel-Crews (Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse). The scientist has created four "serious" games, which are based on live biological processes. With the help of electric fields man manages single-celled organisms and carries it through the obstacles encountered, fills the area of the screen and even play football.
Unconventional concept designed to improve students' motivation to learn complex sciences.