From The Loon Science Labs
The White-Coat Loonies in the basement have good news if you found a video game system under your tree this year: You're about to get smarter.
Researchers Daphne Bavelier, Alexandre Pouget, and C. Shawn Green from the University of Rochester found that playing video games sharpens your vision -- as well as the mind. Their study in Current Biology, shows that video games might actually speed up reactions in real-life.
According to the study, gamers develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, improving a wide variety of skills that can help with everyday activities like driving, reading small print, and keeping track of friends in a crowd.
The researchers tested dozens of 18- to 25-year-olds who were not ordinarily video game players. They split the subjects into two groups. One group played 50 hours of the fast-paced action video games "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament," and the other group played 50 hours of the slow-moving strategy game "The Sims 2."
Afterward, all subjects were asked to make quick decisions in several control tasks.
Action gamers were 25 percent faster at coming to a conclusion and answered just as many questions correctly as the strategy gamers.
"It's not the case that the action game players are trigger-happy and less accurate: They are just as accurate and also faster," Bavelier said. "Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are in the middle of a battlefield, that can make all the difference."
Even tho you may be tempted to use this as an excuse to avoid the wife even more, the Loon Science Labbers are advising us against angering the female species in your abode. From previous experience with their caged white-booted, go-go attired specimens, the White-Coats say you're better off plying them with some bubbly til they pass out. It's only then that they suggest you set up the HALO LAN party.
More From 103.7 The Loon
