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Researchers Examine Video Gaming’s Benefits

By Bob Freeman

Special to American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2010 – Think interactive video games are a waste of time or more

suited for children? Think again. Research under way by the Office of Naval Research indicates

that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their fundamental

abilities to reason and solve problems in novel contexts.

"We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of

perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players," said Ray Perez,

a program officer at the ONR's warfighter performance department in a Jan. 20 interview on

Pentagon Web Radio's audio webcast "Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the

Modern Military."

"Our concern is developing training technologies and training methods to improve performance

on the battlefield," said Perez, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology.

Perez described the war against terrorists as presenting significant challenges to warfighters on

the ground because they must be able to adapt their operations to innovative and deadly

adversaries who constantly change their tactics.

"We have to train people to be quick on their feet - agile problem solvers, agile thinkers - to be

able to counteract and develop counter tactics to terrorists on the battlefield," Perez said. "It's

really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the

enemy."

It's also about adaptability. Perez said this means "being able to work outside your present

mindset, to think beyond what you have been taught, to go beyond your experience to solve

problems in new and different ways."

Perez used the term "fluid intelligence" to describe the ability to change, to meet new problems

and to develop new tactics and counter-tactics. Fluid intelligence, he explained, allows us to

solve problems without prior knowledge or experience.

This raises the question of whether fluid intelligence is innate or can be developed and improved.

"For the last 50 years, fluid intelligence was felt to be immutable," Perez said, "meaning it

couldn't be changed, no matter what kinds of experiences you have."

This, he added, is related to the idea of brain plasticity. "The presumption was that the structure

of the brain and the organization of the brain are pretty much set in concrete by the time you are

out of your teens," he explained.

It once was widely believed that after the age of 20, Perez said, that most humans had achieved

their brain cell capacity, and that new brain cells were acquired at the expense of existing ones.

But conventional beliefs about brain plasticity and aging are changing. The video game-like

training programs at the Office of Naval Research, he noted, are producing surprising results.

“We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory,” he said.

They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player’s field of vision compared to people

who don’t play video games, he added.

While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the

process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved

in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more

synchronized with other neural networks in the brain.

"We're now looking for the underlying neural mechanisms that are responsible for these changes

in behavior and in abilities," Perez said. "We're using various kinds of neural imaging techniques

like [functional magnetic resonance imaging] that identify different areas of the brain that show

activity when you're performing certain tasks, and we can begin to look at what area of the brain

is active during the processing of video information.

"We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to

stimuli in the outside world," he added.

Early indications suggest that cognitive improvements from video games can last up to two and

half years, Perez said, but he admitted that so far the results have been relegated to observations

and measurements in a controlled laboratory environment.

"The major question is that once you've increased these perceptual abilities and cognitive

abilities, do they transfer to everyday tasks," he said, "and how long do they continue to

influence the person working on these everyday tasks?"

In the meantime, the researchers are looking at ways to integrate video game technology into

learning tools. Perez said that they are looking at everything from small-screen training on

personal digital assistants and laptops to simulators and virtual environments.

One virtual environment, used to develop adaptability within team dynamics, looks very much

like a cave.

"You walk into a cave and you're bombarded by this totally different, artificial world where there

may be intelligent avatars that you interact with to perform a mission," Perez said. "These avatars

will act as teammates, so you, as an individual, will have to interact with these avatars as a unit."

Perez said the ultimate goal is to blur the distinction between training and operations.

"I think we're at the beginning of a new science of learning," he said, "that will be the integration

of neuroscience with developmental psychology, with cognitive science, and with artificial

intelligence."

The Office of Naval Research is sponsoring research in new game theory and solvable games.

Those interested in more information on funding opportunities can visit the Human-Machine

Adversarial Network topic (#16) in the office's 2010 Multidisciplinary University Research

Initiative.

(Bob Freeman works in the Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy.)