There is more evidence of the neuropsychological benefits of playing action video games in a new paper to be published in July by Matt Dye and colleagues in Neuropsychologia. This paper shows that playing action video games resulted in improvmenets in attention allocation in children and young people. The authors used the Attention Network Test (ANT) which measure “how well attention is allocated to targets as a function of alerting and orientating cues, and to what extent observers are able to filter out the influence of task irrelevant information flanking those tasks”. The subjects were children and young people between the ages of 7 and 22 who had played action games (such as Halo, Metal Gear, Quake, Grand Theft Auto, Medal of Honor etc) and non action games (Age of Empires, Mario, Solitaire etc) for any length of time in the preceding 12 months (note see the paper for a full list of games categorized). The action video game players performed better on the ANT compared to non action game players. The authors interpret the results as the action players having better attention allocation. In my interpretation they seemed to be able to attend to more data simultaneously rather than focus on certain information. The action games players seemed to have faster speed of processing and picked up visual cues quicker.

This paper adds to a body of work carried out by the University of Rochester showing how computer games change brain function (see examples in web pages by Daphne Bavelier and Matt Dye ). This also fits with other posts on this site. The reason I think that this happens is that computer games involve continued stimulation, seem to act on implicit learning, are structured, follow repeated patterns and are very rewarding ensuring that players practice them repeatedly. All of these factors show the potential of computer games for neuropsychological rehabilitation and for education. It is clear however that not all computer games work in the same way. For computer games to be harnesses in the most effective way it is important to know which parts of the brain are more plastic (i.e. more likely to change) and which elements of the computer games most produce this change. Candidates for areas of plasticity that I have come across include working memory, visual contract sensitivity, attention allocation, speed of processing, visual motor co-ordination and literacy and numeracy development (see Neurogames). There may be other areas. In terms of the type of games, certainty action based games seem to produce changes in attention and visual function. Games requiring remembering short term information are also important. Again there will be others. For any computer game development company out there there are potentially massive benefits (commercially and for social benefit) by getting these elements right. I would be keen to hear of other people’s experience and any ideas about how this can be taken forward.