What You Can Learn From Video Games

Better Visual Skills Noticed in Players of Action Video Games

Even violent video games aren't all bad. A new study shows that playing action video games improves several key visual skills.

The games that do this trick require a player to keep track of several changing objects at one time. These games also mean responding to separate tasks happening in rapid sequence. Forget Tetris, the old game where a person manipulates one geometric shape at a time. Today's action games -- such as Medal of Honor and Grand Theft Auto 3 -- move fast and call for rapid and complex visual processing.

They also tend to be violent, although that's not what University of Rochester, N.Y., researchers C. Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier, PhD, studied. They looked at whether the games change how much, how fast, and over how wide a field a person can track visual objects.

Green and Bavelier tested people age 18-23. Those who played video games were significantly better at all of these tasks than those who did not play the games. Games played included Grand Theft Auto 3, Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Crazy Taxi, Team Fortress Classic, 007, Spider-Man, Halo, Marvel vs. Capcom, Roguespeare, and Super Mario Cart.

Was it really playing video games that made the difference? The researchers got people who didn't play video games to learn to play two different games: Tetris -- the one with the geometric shapes -- and Medal of Honor, an action game in which players assume the role of a WWII agent who must fire weapons and elude enemy soldiers.

After playing the games for an hour a day for 10 consecutive days, the newly minted video gamers underwent visual tests. Those who played Medal of Honor had greater improvements in their visual skills than those who played Tetris.

"Although video-game playing may seem to be rather mindless, it is capable of radically altering visual attention processing," Green and Bavelier write in the May 29 issue of the journal Nature. "By forcing players to simultaneously juggle a number of varied tasks (detect new enemies, track existing enemies, and avoid getting hurt, among others), action-video-game playing pushed the limits of three rather different aspects of visual attention."

Let the Senior Games Begin

May 29, 2000 -- One sign of the growing presence of vigorous older people is the National Senior Games Association, a not-for-profit entity that promotes health and fitness and coordinates state Senior Games and Senior Olympics organizations.

The Senior Games movement itself is just barely a teenager -- 13 years old -- but it has grown steadily from 2,500 participants in the 1987 national games to 12,000 participants in 1999. When you include the state and local competitions, each year about a quarter million athletes age 50 and over are involved, and the Baby Boom generation is expected to swell the ranks in coming years.

Senior athletes cite the camaraderie and friendship as draws, says Cynthia Vaughan, Games Coordinator for the California State Senior Games Championships. "This becomes sort of their family," she says. "These are vibrant people."

One participant, Shirley Sluiter, has played tennis since she was 14 or 15. Although she confesses that she can't cover the court quite as easily as she once did, she still plays singles. Before getting out of bed each morning, she does exercises for her arms and legs, and she walks at least 15 minutes a day. In tennis, she placed fourth in the 75 to 79 age group at the 1999 National Senior Games in Tucson, Ariz.

Don Stupfel, a swimmer who at 72 has participated in both the Senior Games and the Pacific Coast Masters Association, says he enjoys "competition, meeting with people, watching them excel, improve, and stay in shape." His wife Gloria, also in her 70s, and brother Norman, 68, also swim in the Senior Games.

Stupfel has been a competitive swimmer off and on all his life, and just a few years ago worked underwater as a commercial abalone and sea urchin fisherman. He says that swimming has helped him overcome severe back problems. "I look forward to [advancing to] my next age group," says Stupfel, "instead of worrying about getting older."

Writer David R. Dudley is based in Berkeley, Calif. His stories have appeared in The New Physician and The San Jose Mercury News.

Was Lawrence Too Healthy for ‘The Hunger Games’?

A week ago, the much-anticipated movie “The Hunger Games” opened to huge audiences and mostly decent reviews. Some of those reviews, however, took a disturbing turn when some critics brought up the film’s lead, Jennifer Lawrence’s, weight, with a few suggesting she was too healthy looking to play a girl from a poor district. Though he praised her overall performance, Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter rather oddly mentioned her “lingering baby fat” while Jeffrey Wells in “Hollywood Elsewhere” called her a “big-boned lady.” Interestingly, all but one of these critics (Manohla Dargis of The New York Times) are men, and none of them criticized the well-fed physique of co-star Liam Hemsworth, who comes from the same impoverished background as Lawrence’s character.

Nearly anyone who’s ever seen Jennifer Lawrence would agree that she’s got a fit, healthy (and slender) figure, and the fact that these critics are dwelling on her waistline instead of her performance illustrates a dangerous and worrying preoccupation with actress’—and, indeed, women’s weight. For Lawrence to perfectly fit the character’s body description in the book (particularly the latter parts of the story), she would have probably had to starve herself, or at least go on an extreme diet, and she would have had to do it quickly—she had six weeks to get ready and train for the part. That’s a dangerous and potentially life-threatening prospect that can have far-reaching health implications—among other things, rapid weight loss can cause hair and muscle loss, electrolyte imbalances, and gallstones. The actress herself has claimed she takes a healthy approach to life—she exercises regularly but refuses to diet. Shouldn’t that be celebrated instead of derided?

Between this and the Vogue story about the mother who put her 7-year-old daughter on a diet, young women’s bodies have been in the news quite a bit this week. There’s a lot of pressure on women and girls to be skinny, no matter what their genes dictate, and Hollywood has often been guilty of advancing the skinny=pretty idea, leading many young girls to embrace crash diets, unregulated pills and supplements, and eating disorders. Criticizing an actress in mainstream newspapers for refusing to starve herself for a role and derisively calling her “big boned” when she most definitely is not is sending the wrong message to many. It’s time to focus on the performance rather than looks and get the message straight that it’s not about fitting into a size 0, it’s about being fit and healthy.

How do you feel?  Did Lawrence’s appearance affect the movie for you? Were the critics right to point out the weight discrepancies between what’s onscreen and on the page? Or is it much ado about nothing? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Online Games Provide Social Connection

Players Are Socializing, Not Shunning People, Researchers Say

Aug. 18, 2006 -- Online video games may have some social perks, a new study shows.

The study, published in the July edition of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, focuses on large, collaborative games called MMOs (massively multiplayer online games).

Players may spend hours absorbed in those games. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're antisocial, write Constance Steinkuehler, PhD, and Dmitri Williams, PhD.

Steinkuehler is an assistant professor of educational communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Williams is an assistant professor of speech communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

"Spending time in these social games helps people meet others not like them, even if it doesn't always lead to strong friendships," Williams says in a UIUC news release.

The researchers reached that conclusion after studying new MMO players for a year and interviewing players of the games "Asheron's Call I and II" and "Lineage I and II."


Game World

The games served as a fun, neutral place where people got to know each other, at least a little bit -- sort of like a coffee shop or a pub, the researchers note.

One player wrote, "I don't have to worry about how I look or if my hair or clothes are okay" when playing MMOs.

Another told fellow players about catching a cold after his girlfriend's cousin kissed him. That story prompted a string of questions about the kiss. "She kisses me on the cheek," the player replied.

Williams and Steinkuehler noticed a lot of "bridge" conversations -- chats between players who don't have a lot in common, except their game.

"Bridging" is mainly seen among new players, while longtime players tend to be more intense and less chatty during games, the researchers note.

Bridging can be broadening, but even so, MMOs can't replace real-life relationships.

"For the individual seeking emotional and substantive support, they are far less socially useful -- at least in the short term," the researchers write.

Dangerous Games

Perhaps it was boredom; perhaps it was a way of blowing off steam, but adolescents play some pretty dangerous games. This week, I treated two teens for injuries sustained by these games.

The first game was called “Knuckles”. Forgive me if I get the rules of this game incorrect, but from what I understand is that teens challenge each other to a game of ramming their fists (knuckles) into a variety of objects, such as walls, doors, road signs, each other, etc.

One of my first patients in the morning was a 16 year old girl (yes, a girl!) holding her right hand. She had some tenderness of the fifth metacarpal — the bone of the hand directly below the 5th or little finger. This was most likely a common hand fracture, often referred to as a Boxer’s Fracture.

A quick trip to the x-ray revealed that she indeed had a 5th metacarpal fracture. It wasn’t a bad fracture, but she will need a special cast on her hand for a month or so. A month in a cast should be plenty of time for her to ponder this decision to slam her knuckles into a stop sign on the way home from school. I am not sure how this game is won, but if getting a fracture is considered a point, then maybe she is a winner.

The second patient was brought in with some additional hand injury, mostly just pain and bruising. This was a result of a game called “Quarters”. The mother was initially horrified by thinking her 14 year old was playing a drinking game of the same name in which a quarter is bounced into a shot glass. If you miss, you have to drink the shot of alcohol. Fortunately, it wasn’t this game.

I know even less about this new quarters game, but apparently it involves the spinning of a quarter on the table. If this spinning quarter stops near your hand, you are awarded with having a quarter flicked into your knuckles. There was no need to x-ray this one. The treatment is simple: Stop doing that! We never played this game when I was a kid; we never had quarters!

This same patient freely shared another game called “Pong”. In this game, you volley the ping-pong ball until you miss. If you do miss, then your opponent can hit a ping-pong ball as fast as they can at any part of your body you do not cover. Girls will cover their faces and end up getting a series of round, red welts on their chest and abdomen. Boys, naturally, will cover their groin, not wanting to get receive a line-drive in this area. They will likely end up with red welts on their face.

These are the only three games that I know of at this point, but I would welcome posting from other parents or teens on more of them.

Now, before you start becoming judgmental about teenage behavior, try and remember what YOU did at that age. When I think back on some of the dangerous games that we invented, I am surprised that I made it to adulthood unscathed.

We played Knuckle Poker. If you lost, the winner of the hand was allowed to hit your knuckles with the edge of the deck of cards. Not only was it painful and caused your knuckles to bleed, it encouraged cheating. A variation of this game involved slapping your tender forearm with two saliva-wet fingers. That, of course, stung like a bee and was on the unsanitary side.

The worst of the poker variation was in college, where I played (once) a game of Water Poker. The losers of the hand must drink a small Dixie cup of water…just plain ‘ol water. Over the course of an evening, the unlucky ones developed some profound electrolyte imbalances, became dizzy, disoriented, and appeared intoxicated (water intoxication). You would think that future medical professionals would have known better, but in our defense, we did not have that class yet.

Later on, water was replaced by beer or Jack Daniels — a game that I did not play. I have never been a fan of alcohol and I certainly am not a fan of being drunk. I only experienced alcohol intoxication ONCE in my college years from a drinking challenge (I needed the money, and it wasn’t time to sell a pint to the Blood Bank) and vowed never to do that again.

To this day, I do not drink alcohol in any form. People who do not know me think I am either a Mormon (we do have five kids) or a recovered alcoholic! Apparently, it is not socially acceptable NOT to partake in a glass of wine without a detailed explanation.

And, yes, there were other dangerous games, like the various versions of Chicken. Not wanted to be painfully labeled as a coward or chicken, kids will try just about anything. We shot BB guns at each other, threw kitchen matches, threw darts into the air and tried to catch them on a piece cardboard.

We were also constantly challenged to eat various things, from horse manure to hot chili peppers. Not wanted to be a chicken, I would swing on a vine over a 50 foot drop into the canyon below, or sit in the Devil’s Seat at Wolf Rocks — a natural depression in a rock that hung out over a precarious drop off of several hundred feet. Does this sound like a popular television reality series?

I can’t say that I was ever Triple-Dog Dared to do these things. I did them thoughtlessly and willingly; just the way kids are supposed to act. My mother knew nothing about any of these things that we did. Just as long as I came home by dark and did not require obvious medical attention, she was totally oblivious to our acts of adolescent stupidity. And, I lived to blog about it.

Related Topics: Media Messages Harm Teen, Child Health, 10 Perks for Teens Who Exercise

Technorati Tags: dangerous games, jackass, fear factor, teen behavior

Violent Video Games Have Impact on the Brain

Players of Violent Video Games Show Signs of Brian Changes Linked to Aggression

May 25, 2010 (New Orleans) -- Young, healthy men who play a lot of violent video games over a long period of time show distinct changes in brain activity that correlate with aggressive behavior, preliminary research suggests.

A number of studies have linked frequent use of violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt to aggressive tendencies in kids. But other studies have found no such link.

There has been little research into whether the games have an impact on brain function.

The new study involved 14 young men, average age 25, who said they played violent video games an average of five hours a day for at least two years, and 14 young men of similar ages who didn't play violent video games.

All participants filled out a standard questionnaire used to gauge aggression and underwent MRI imaging of the brain while relaxed and with their eyes closed.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.
Video Games and Aggression

Results showed the players of the violent games had substantially higher scores on the aggression questionnaire. And they showed increased activity in the brain's default mode network -- a series of connected areas that work hardest when most of the brain is at rest -- compared with the non-players.

High activity in the default mode network indicates reduced cognitive activity during resting periods, says researcher Gregor R. Szycik, PhD, of Hannover Medical School in Germany.

Statistical analysis showed the increased activity in the default mode network correlated with higher scores on the aggression questionnaire, he tells WebMD.

The work is very preliminary and does not show that violent video games lead to aggressive behavior, Szycik says. If there is a link, "we don't know which comes first, the aggression or the violent game playing."

"The work is a nice step in the right direction, using a novel approach to look at the impact of video games on human behavior," says Donald Hilty, MD, co-chair of the committee that chose which studies to highlight at the meeting. Hilty is a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Davis.
"It suggests that when you stop a high-intensity activity, you might not be the same as usual. It's not like you'll go out and shoot someone, but your mental skills may not be quite as sharp, just like when you watch too much TV," Hilty tells WebMD.

Moderation is key, he says. "If you do anything too much, even exercise, you'll run into trouble."
This study was presented at a medical conference. The findings should be considered preliminary as they have not yet undergone the "peer review" process, in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal.

Action Video Games Help Decision-Making

Fast-Paced Video Games Help People Make Quicker Decisions, Researchers Say
Sept 13, 2010 -- Action video games teach you to think and act quickly and accurately inside and outside of the box, according to a new study in Current Biology.

People who played action video games for 50 hours were just as accurate and significantly faster at making decisions, compared to gamers who played strategy-oriented or role-playing video games for the same amount of time. And this prowess was evident on non-game-related tasks that called for quick decision-making, the study showed.

"Action video games are fast-paced, and there are peripheral images and events popping up, and disappearing," says study researcher C. Shawn Green, PhD, a postdoctoral associate at the Kersten Computational Vision Lab at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Green was at the University of Rochester, N.Y., when the new study was conducted.

"These video games are teaching people to become better at taking sensory data in, and translating it into correct decisions," he says. In brain labs, this ability is called “probabilistic inference,” and it refers to how we process the information we have when we need to make a snap decision.

"There is always some uncertainty about what is going on," Green says. "Our eyes don’t take in everything and our ears don't either, so you take the sensory data that you have, and make a decision based on the probability of being right.”
Action Games Improve Decision-Making Speed

In the new study of 18- to 25-year-old non-gamers, one group played 50 hours of action-packed video games, while the other played a slow-moving strategy game for the same amount of time. Participants were then asked to perform two specific decision-making tasks in the lab. The first task involved determining whether a bunch of moving white dots were going right or left. The second task measured their ability to tell if a single pitched tone was heard in their right or left ear while wearing a pair of headphones that emitted white noise.

"Action video games help you make faster decisions across the board because you are learning to translate what you are seeing or hearing into correct probability," Green says.
"Action gamers are not trigger happy or impulsive," he says. "They press the button faster, and are just as accurate," he says.

This quality is beneficial for people in the military or police officers who must think quickly on their feet with little margin for error, he says.

"The new results are consistent with previous studies done by this excellent group of researchers and also with
results from our lab," says Ian Spence, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.

"First-person shooter games can change the brain, improving several low level perceptual functions, sometimes dramatically," he says. Perceptual functions are the various brain functions involved in seeing, hearing, smelling, he says.

"Once we get a better handle on what is going on we may be able to offer guidelines for game design that
retain the perceptual training features of first-person shooter games, but without the violence that discourages some people from playing these games," he says.

Moderation Is Key

"We knew that there were hand-eye coordination benefits to video games, and now we know there are decision-making benefits with these games too," says Edward Hallowell, MD, a psychiatrist and the founder of the Hallowell Centers in New York City and Boston.

"It's the quickness of these action games, not the content," he says. "You have to make decisions and manipulate your fingers in a heartbeat."

The reason video games get a bad rap is not the games per se, Hallowell says. "It is when they are played to the exclusion of all other activities."