Gaming on the Brain (literally)

Tech: Self-care, self-improvement, or both? It’s tough to imagine a world without smartphones, electronics, and gaming consoles. Sure, we can retreat into the backwaters of our mind and pull out a few funny stories about the infamous dial-up tone, the three-day song download, and having to re-watch the guide channel because we got distracted four times at the wrong moment. Even these memories involve some kind of technology, and our familiarity with the resources at our fingertips have only increased. In 2015, 86% percent of young adults owned a smartphone, 78% owned a computer, and over half owned a gaming console (Anderson, 2015).

Technology is so familiar to us that many of us have incorporated its usage into our definition of self-care. Watching Netflix, playing video games, and zoning out on an app are things we identify as being relaxing, calming, or entertaining. So, if these activities can be part of our self-care, do they also have researched benefits for our brains? What about the claims that video games help our memory and coordination? I took these questions and delved deep into the research to try and get some answers.

Gaming and “The Transfer Effect”

Whether a video game can help us with real life skills will depend on something called the Transfer Effect. Transfer refers to how much a gaming skill can transfer to your real life. For example, Israeli Air Force flight school cadets who played the game Space Fortress which requires players to focus attention to multiple demanding tasks (Boot et al., 2009) performed significantly better on actual flight performance than the control group (Gopher, Weil, & Baraket, 1994). In fact, Space Fortress was added to the training program of the Israeli Air Force because of the demonstrated transfer effect between in-game play and real-world performance (Boot et al., 2009) .

Some games improve our abilities just for the short-term; in this case, they are said to have “near-transfer.” Here’s an example. After at least 30 rounds of Bejeweled Blitz, people performed better at a searching task, but only immediately after playing their rounds of Bejeweled Blitz; the brain boost didn’t seem to last (Stroud and Whitborne, 2015). What does this mean for us? Well, if you’re about to be in a word-search championship, then 30 rounds of Bejeweled might help you warm up. Do with that information what you will.

So at this point we’ve discovered that “near-transfer” doesn’t last for long, and to have any lasting benefits, we need a game to have “far-transfer.” Consider the abilities needed to excel in chess: strong visualization of the game board and perceptual understanding of where pieces could move and when. Despite demonstrating strong perceptual skills in chess, research found that chess players’ perceptual skills did not extend to other areas like visual memory for shapes (Waters et al, 2002). To summarize, beating all of your friends at chess doesn’t mean they won’t beat you later when it comes to a memory task. It does, however, mean you're really good at chess, which is pretty cool on its own.

Super Mario’s Super Memory?

Primary memory refers to attending to information that currently holds our focus of attention. Working memory refers to the ability to temporarily store information in primary memory while performing other tasks that divide attention. For example, a student is reading a math problem aloud and is asked to solve it. She keeps the problem in her primary memory as she works through it. Her primary memory knows the question is asking her how many apples are left, so while she’s doing the subtraction in her working memory, she doesn’t forget why she is subtracting in the first place.

Kuhn et al. (2014) conducted a study on whether playing in the 3D world of Super Mario 64 could have measurable benefits to the brain. They found that participants who played Super Mario 64 thirty minutes each day for a period of 2 months showed an increase in grey matter volume in the brain. Participants’ weekly ratings of their motivation to play the game correlated positively with the grey matter increase. The more motivated they were to play, the more grey matter increased. Grey matter volume increased in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an important area in executive control and working memory. The takeaway? You could make the argument that playing Super Mario 64 is your way of boosting your brain’s “muscle” power. Be wary though: these same brain changes were not found in response to playing Tetris (Haier, Karama, Leyba, & Jung, 2009). Different genres of games place different demands on cognitive processes and result in different brain activity.

They found that participants who played Super Mario 64 thirty minutes each day for a period of 2 months showed an increase in grey matter volume in the brain.

What About the Genre of Games like Apex and Call of Duty?

A study by Colzato et al. (2013) investigated the effect of First-Person Shooter (FPS) games on working memory in 52 healthy young adults. I’ll spare you the details and leave you with the takeaways. Overall, results showed video game players were more skilled in updating their working memory. They were better able to remove old non-relevant information from working memory and in so doing free capacity for new items. In other words, the study found that video game players have improved cognitive flexibility (Colzato et al., 2013).

Overall, results showed video game players were more skilled in updating their working memory.

As the informed consumers of research that we are, we can likely guess that it’s possible to find evidence out there with not so great results for video games. That said, it doesn’t hurt to know some of the interesting positive findings. If after a long day your favorite thing to do is unwind with a video game, who are we to judge your preferred brain boosting activities! At the end of the day, self-care is the important piece. Spend time doing whatever it is you’re motivated to do and look for the good in it.

References

Anderson, M. (2015). Technology device ownership: 2015. Pew Research Center.

Boot, W., Kramer, A., Simons, D., Fabiani, M., & Gratton G. (2009). The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control. Acta Psychologica, 129(3), 387-398.

Colzato, L. S., van den Wildenberg, W. P. M., Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2012). Action video gaming and cognitive control: Playing first person shooter games is associated with improvement in working memory but not action inhibition. Psychological Research, 77, 234–239. doi:10.1007/s00426-012-0415-2

Gobet, F., Johnston, S. J., Ferrufino, G., Johnston, M., Jones, M. B., Molyneux, A., & Weeden, L. (2014). "No level up!": no effects of video game specialization and expertise on cognitive performance. Frontiers In Psychology, 51337. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01337

Gopher, D., Weil, M., Siegel, D. (1989). Practice under changing priorities: An approach to the training of complex skills Acta Psychologica, 71(1-3), 147-177.

Haier, R. J., Karama, S., Leyba, L., & Jung, R. E. (2009). MRI assessment of cortical thickness and functional activity changes in adolescent girls following three months of practice on a visual-spatial task. BMC Research Notes, 2174. doi:10.1186/1756-0500-2-174

Jausovec, N. & Jausovec, K. (2012). Working memory training: Improving intelligence ― Changing brain activity. Brain And Cognition, 79(2), 96-106.

Kuhn, S., Gleich, T., Lorenz, R., Linderberger, U., & Gallinet, J. (2014). Playing Super Mario induces structural brain plasticity: gray matter changes resulting from training with a commercial video game. Molecular Psychiatry, 19(2), 265-271.

Lorant, S., & Lieury, A. (2014). Efficiency of brain training vs. recreational video games for cognitive/academic performance: A synthesis of 3 experiments. Journal Of Communications Research, 6(2), 107-151.

McDougall, S., & House, B. (2012). Brain training in older adults: Evidence of transfer to memory span performance and pseudo-Matthew effects. Aging Neuropsychology And Cognition, 19(1-2), 195-221.

Miller, D. J. & Robertson, D. P. (2009). Using a games-console in the primary classroom: Effects of 'Brain Training' programme on computation and self-esteem. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41, 2, 242-255.

Miller, D. J., & Robertson, D. P. (2011). Educational benefits of using game consoles in a primary classroom: A randomised controlled trial. British Journal Of Educational Technology, 42(5), 850-864. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01114.x

Nouchi, R., Taki, Y., Takeuchi, H., Hashizume, H., Nozawa, T., Kambara, T., & Kawashima, R. (2013). Brain training game boosts executive functions, working memory and processing speed in the young adults: A randomized controlled trial. Plos ONE, 8(2), 1-13. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055518

Olson, C. (2010). Children's motivations for video game play in the context of normal development. Review Of General Psychology, 14(2), 180-187.

Plerhoples T., Zak Y., Hernandez-Boussard, T,, & Lau J. (2011). Another use of the mobile device: warm-up for laparoscopic surgery. J Surg Res 170(2):185–188

Pereira, G., Ninaus, M., Prada, R., Wood, G., Neuper, C., & Paiva, A. (2015). Free your brain a working memory training game. Lecture Notes In Computer Science, 9221132-141.

Stroud, M., & Whitbourne, S. (2015). Casual video games as training tools for attentional processes in everyday life. Cyberpsychology Behavior And Social Networking, 18(11), 654-660.