Fast-paced video games boost ability to concentrate

LONDON - Action packed video games are often blamed for encouraging violent behaviour but they actually help players develop superior visual attention, says a new study.

This mental skill helps us to pick out a friend’s face from a crowd or drive a car along a busy street without getting sensory overload.

The review, led by Daphne Bavelier from the University of Rochester in the US, looked at how gaming can affect our ability to cope with the almost overwhelming amount of visual data that we process daily, reports the journal Cognitive Science.

The authors referred to a number of training studies that found non-gamers could improve their visual attention by playing video games, according to the Daily Mail.

However, only fast-paced, action-based games provided this benefit. These games emphasised rapid responses to visual information and required divided attention.

Study co-author Bjorn Hubert-Wallander said: “Just as drivers have to focus on the road, other cars and potential obstacles while ignoring other information, modern action games place heavy attentional demands on players.

“These games require players to aim and shoot accurately in the centre of the screen while continuously tracking other enemies and fast-moving objects.”

The findings could have implications for military training as well as clinical rehabilitation programmes for conditions such as amblyopia or ‘lazy eye’.