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| Let 'em play: it turns out computer games are good for the eyes |
June 28, 2007 |
Violent computer games are loud, gory and filled with fast action. They are also good for players’ vision, according to researchers at the University of Rochester.
Video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, sharpen vision by 20 per cent if played for a few hours daily over the course of a month. Players assessed by the university improved their ability to identify letters presented in clutter, a visual acuity test similar to assessments used in regular ophthalmology clinics.
“Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information,” said Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. “After just 30 hours, players showed a substantial increase in the spatial resolution of their vision, meaning they could see figures like those on an eye chart more clearly, even when other symbols crowded in.”
Bavelier and graduate student Shawn Green tested college students who had played few, if any, video games in the last year. Students were first given a crowding test, which measured how well they could discern the orientation of a “T” within a crowd of other distracting symbols. Students were then divided into two groups. The experimental group played Unreal Tournament for roughly an hour a day. The control group played Tetris, a game equally demanding in terms of motor control but visually less complex.
After about a month the Tetris players showed no improvement on the test, but those who spent their time shooting monsters could tell which way the “T” was pointing much more easily and accurately.
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