Video Games Improve Visual Search: Study

Controversies over video games center on the content, whether or not violent video games are harmful to players. This has been a topic of debate for many years.

But not all video games are bad. The latest study brings good news to those who are addicted to the violent shooting games. It is said that these games enhance the aspect of visual attention.

According to researchers from the University of Toronto, those who play shooting or driving video games even for a short time improve their ability to hunt for a target hidden among other distractions in a complex scene.

Prior to this, research conducted showed how playing first shooter video games enhances the aspects of visual attention. But no study has shown that even the visual search develops, reports psychology professor Ian Spence in ScienceDaily

The need for searching efficiently and correctly is needed in many tasks such as baggage screening, reading X-rays or MRIs, overcoming camouflage or reading satellite images, reports MedicalXpress.

The first experiment conducted had both action video game players and non-players. They conducted a test on three visual search tasks and noticed that the action video game players were better than the non-players.

According to Sijing Wu, a PhD candidate in Spence's lab in U of T's Department of Psychology and lead author of the study, the difference existed due to the pre-existing advantage in the experienced gamers when compared to the non-gamers.  In order to establish whether playing an action game can actually improve the search skill, a training experiment is needed.

A second experiment was conducted on 60 participants who had never played video games. They were made to play for a total of 10 hours in 1-2 hour sessions. Out of the 60 participants, 20 were allowed to play the first person shooter game, 20 to a driving-racing game, Need for Speed, and 20 to a three-dimensional puzzle game, Ballance as a control, reports ScienceDaily.

After playing either the shooter game or driving game for 10 hours, the participants were tested on the three visual search tasks, and researchers noticed that they were more fast and accurate after playing the game. They didn't notice any improvement in the control group who played puzzle game.

Wu concludes saying, ""We have shown that playing a driving-racing game can produce the same benefits as a shooter game. This could be very important in situations where we wish to train visual search skills. Driving games are likely to be more acceptable than shooting games because of the lower levels of violence."