Keep an eye on the game

By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
Published: April 08, 2009, 23:09

Here's some evidence that staying hooked to your favourite games may be good for you after all.

According to a study published online in Nature Neuroscience, people who played 50 hours of action video games showed significant improvement in contrast sensitivity function, a key aspect of vision, .

Contrast sensitivity function refers to the ability to detect small differences in shades of grey, and it is one of the most vulnerable elements of vision. Scientists believe it is affected by deterioration of the eye itself.But a team of researchers from The University of Rochester and Tel Aviv University suspected that changes in the brain played a role as well. If so, they reasoned that mental exercise could offer some improvement.

To find out, they recruited video game novices in their 20s and asked some of them to play Atari's Unreal Tournament 2004 and Call of Duty 2 by Infinity Ward, two fast-paced games that require players to aim and shoot weapons from battle vehicles.

Others were assigned to The Sims 2 from Electronic Arts, an elaborate simulation game that doesn't ask players to make any quick or visually precise moves. Participants were asked to play their games for a total of 50 hours over nine weeks. The researchers measured each player's contrast sensitivity function before and after their training and found that the sensitivity of people assigned to the shoot-'em-up games improved by an average of 58 per cent. Those who played The Sims improved, too, but not as much as those who played action games.

The benefits lasted for months and may even last for years. "Generally our results establish that time spent in front of a computer screen is not necessarily detrimental to vision,"the authors of the research wrote.