Video Gamers Might Have Quicker Eyes


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Video gamers may have quicker eyes

Fri Jul 1, 2005 2:57 PM ET

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Video game players may spend a lot of time on the couch, but when they're ready to go out they can find their keys quicker than the rest of us, a study suggests.

Researchers found that gamers who devote much of their free time to Grand Theft Auto and Super Mario may be able to scan their environment and spot the target of their search more quickly than non-gamers can.

In experiments with college students who were either hard-core video game players or novices, the researchers found that players were quicker to detect target objects on a busy computer screen than their peers were.

The findings, published in the journal Acta Psychologica, suggest that the vigilant watchfulness video games require makes for quicker visual processing.

Gamers' brains don't appear to have any specialized search strategy, they're just faster, explained lead study author Dr. Alan Castel, a post-doctorate fellow in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

Specifically, both groups of students were similar when it came to the search principle of "inhibition of return." According to Castel, this means that when people look for their keys, they look in one place, and if the keys aren't there, they will look in a number of other spots before giving the original location a second go-around.

In the experiments, he told Reuters Health, video gamers used the same search strategy as non-gamers did. "They just executed it faster," he said.

What this means for real life is uncertain. The advantage video game players held over their peers was on the order of 100 milliseconds, Castel noted.

It's possible, though, that a gamer's speedier visual processing could make the difference between, for example, crashing a car and averting an accident, according to Castel.

That doesn't mean, however, that people should take up video games to improve their driving records. That 100-millisecond advantage could take a lot of playing time, Castel said; gamers in his study played 6 days a week, on average, for about 2 hours each day.

Video games have been much criticized for their violent content and for contributing to couch-potato lifestyles. This study, Castel noted, doesn't judge video games as "good" or "bad." It just suggests they feed a very particular expertise.

The main research interest, according to Castel, is in whether video games, through effects on visual processing, attention and movement, can be useful in rehabilitating the brain -- after a stroke, for instance, or in cases of age-related memory loss.

SOURCE: Acta Psychologica, June 2005.

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle....ERS-EYES-DC.XML

That doesn't mean, however, that people should take up video games to improve their driving records. That 100-millisecond advantage could take a lot of playing time, Castel said; gamers in his study played 6 days a week, on average, for about 2 hours each day.

I use to qualify for that. possibly still do. :ninja:

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ive noticed my eyes are like that, because when im scanning things online, or through my computer, people hardly ever know what the hell im doing since i go so fast

fellow houstonian :D

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ive noticed my eyes are like that, because when im scanning things online, or through my computer, people hardly ever know what the hell im doing since i go so fast

thats true, in a way that i can scroll comments on the products, or read reviews or comparisons i get a general idea and make a decision really fast. people who watched me do it, did not get a clue of what this comments were about at all

but i think it is not just because of a faster looking. i think you brain becomes more trained to filter unless information by looking for keywords and such in the text.

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just because 2 hours a day is devoted to gaming, doesn't mean they don't get out and exercise physically.

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"Video Gamers might have Quicker Eyes"

It says most Gamers do; so if you play alot your more than likely to have quicker eyes.

Should come in handy if your about to do a driving theory test in the uk, you know, hazard perception test.

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ive noticed my eyes are like that, because when im scanning things online, or through my computer, people hardly ever know what the hell im doing since i go so fast

fellow houstonian :D

586152687[/snapback]

Same here....that's what I keep saying to everyone....leave me alone I wanna game!!! :laugh:

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ive noticed my eyes are like that, because when im scanning things online, or through my computer, people hardly ever know what the hell im doing since i go so fast

586152687[/snapback]

Same here, I can scroll through posts without ease. Some people ask me "What the heck did you just do?". In a way I think this article is true. But it may not be the case for every gamer.

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yeah, but their body is slower.

586152948[/snapback]

I must have missed that part of the research. Could you point it out ot me? Or was this the result of your own personal scientific investigation?

In fact, research at the University of Rochester tied video game skill to hand-eye coordination (which has been corroborated by military research).

Of course, if you're out of shape you're out of shape. Playing video games doesn't make you slow, being out of shape does. There are plenty of fat, lazy bums who never play video games.

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"may" being the key word. dumb article.

586153099[/snapback]

well its pretty much true. competitive or heavy gamers can notice higher frame rates too and have better hand eye coordination.

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Befor I got my computer I had bad eyes I had to wear glasses. After a year of hard core gameing my eyes went 20/15 and I have never had to put them on aging.

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I guess that's why I got so bored at the wheel when I drove on the freeway. Non stop straightness for miles, with nothing to see other than fellow motorists.

My eyes need something to look at and my brain to process, instead of doing repetitive things.

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