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Multi-tasking World of Warcraft. Screenshot by Joi Ito. |
These findings might come as a welcome surprise to some of WoW's reported 10 million subscribers, but this study is just one among a growing number confirming the fact that even purely-entertainment based games can have valuable cognitive effects for players. Several previous studies focusing on younger gamers have shown that games like the first-person shooter Medal of Honor or action games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and Marvel vs Capcom can improve certain mental skills like visual attention and the ability to mentally rotate 3-dimensional objects. Older gamers, too, have previously been shown to benefit from games. A 2008 study published in the journal Psychology and Aging showed that adults playing the real-time strategy game Rise of Nations had improved task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory and reasoning.
Or course, we are still a long way away from being able to put away our books and lower our pencils in favor of video games as our primary source of mental stimulation, but for older gamers, at least, this latest study provides just one more reason for all the Old Granda Hardcores out there to keep getting their game on!
The corrected proofs of the study, titled "Individual differences in response to cognitive training: Using a multi-modal, attentionally demanding game-based intervention for older adults," can be found here, although it seems that the study is currently behind a paywall: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.01.012.
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