Videogames make you clever - US Navy

By Robert Purchese Published 27 January, 2010

"A new science of learning," says boffin.

The US Navy has published a new report that states, as its title, that "Adults Benefit from Playing Video Games".

Dr. Ray Perez, a program officer at the Office of Naval Research, believes that gamers are much better at adapting to changing situations on the battlefield.

"We have discovered that videogame players perform 10 to 20 per cent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game-players," said Perez in a webcast, reported by Armed with Science (via Kotaku). "We know that videogames can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory."

"We have to train people to be quick on their feet," he added, "agile problem solvers, agile thinkers – to be able to counteract and develop counter-tactics to terrorists on the battlefield. It’s really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the enemy."

This idea of "fluid intelligence" was thought to be, up until now, impossible to train past the age of 20. But videogames appear to temporarily boost the brain's plasticity. Perez's guess is that the neural networks stimulated by gaming manage to synchronise and stimulate other crucial neural networks in the brain.

"We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to stimuli in the outside world," he added.

Perez and his team are working hard on identifying the parts of the brain responsible for these positive changes. He's also looking at integrating videogames as learning tools for the Navy.

One such tool that's already available walks players into a cave, where they find an artificial world and must interact with AI avatars in order to complete a mission.

"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."

Sounds a bit like a film with blue horses that we saw recently. [BLUE HORSE BLUE HORSE - Ed.]

Please don't hesitate to drop us a line should you know more about this, or be a brain boffin yourself.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcmonkeyplc #1 2 years ago

    There was a report in the economist about this about 3 years ago!

  • Fab4 #2 2 years ago

    "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

  • AphoticCosmos #3 2 years ago

    Gamers are the new master race, c/d?

  • Skandalle #4 2 years ago

    Sold! Sign me up!

  • spekkeh #5 2 years ago

    I just e-mailed the Nobel Committee, Turing Award and Field's Medal jury to reserve a prize with my name engraved in it. Just to be sure. Any moment now.

    /goes back to GTA to drive over hookers in a burning car

  • TopKatt #6 2 years ago

    I are agree.

  • Vroom #7 2 years ago

    All my bases agree

  • ignatiusjreilly #8 2 years ago

    It's amazing what games can do - make you clever, make you stupid, make you violent, turn you gay, make you fit, make you fat, damage your eyes, give you rickets, improve concentration, give you ADD, train you for war, train you for crime, teach you to cook and give you blisters.

    All those capabilities and my life has barely moved in the last ten years. What gives?

  • Murton #9 2 years ago

    I'd have thought it would be pretty common knowledge that video game players would be good at thinking on the fly compared to people who don't. Things like problem solving, reaction times, logical thought and performance under pressure have been the cornerstones of gaming for decades, stands to reason really.

    It is however great to see a report that makes positive claims on the effect of gaming as recently it's been nothing but bad news. Last week it was claimed by some medical journal that video games are responsible for a new rise in rickets in the UK, last year they were slammed as a root cause of childhood obesity and over the last five years or so anti-social/criminal behaviour in teenagers was allegedly inspired by violent video games. At least there are some organisations out there that still take gaming seriously rather than looking to use it as a scapegoat for the failings of modern society.

    EDIT: seems we both think the same way reilly. Also there was a study last year that claimed video games could help maintain or even improve eyesight. Everything you have ever heard video games being able to do to people it has been found equally capable of doing the exact opposite. Big waste of so-called scientists time in my opinion.
    Edited by 1 at 27/01/10 @ 12:45

  • CosmicGypsy #10 2 years ago

    I hav bin playing gaems since I was sicks and they maed me a lot moar cleverer. You carnt argyew with boffins!

  • stodgypudding #11 2 years ago

    Wayne Rooney is a 'clever' footballer. See what I've done there?

  • erp #12 2 years ago

    I wonder if the British newspapers will report this.

  • CosmicGypsy #13 2 years ago

    "We have discovered that videogame players perform 10 to 20 per cent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people"

    I thought I WAS a normal person.

  • MiniAmin #14 2 years ago

    Videogames make you clever, however they also cause societal breakdown/generate criminal proclivities/entertain the Taliban and whatever else Jack Thomson/Ian Duncan Smith/Ron Jeremy keep telling us.

    So there! Take that, cognitive scientists!

  • M_of_the_sys #15 2 years ago

    I am amazing.

  • patchbox360 #16 2 years ago

    @stodgypudding

    comprende

  • AliRay #17 2 years ago

    British media headline:

    "NAVY GIVE THEIR OWN OFFICERS RICKETTS"

  • Korpers #18 2 years ago

    This thread is the funniest on EG for a while...

  • Wolverfrog #19 2 years ago

    I hope this won't be a new commercial.

    "Enjoy playing video games? Studies have shown that you're likely to have higher perceptual and cognitive abilities. Apply those skills to real life; join the Navy."

    I can actually see this happening.

  • TitusCrow #20 2 years ago

    This does not bare out regarding the "dumb as rocks" kids you see online these days. 1998 I'm sure gamers were sharp as tacks, now the great dumbening and everyone wins attitude foisted by ridiculously east titles make sure that a generation of gamers have little skill, lateral thinking or sportsmanship.

    Games say " you can win too!", even if you have all the co-ordination of a drunken taser victim and reactions of a stunned sloth. Hard core masterpieces like Demon's souls provide only a blip on the otherwise downward trajectory of the way games pander to the lowest common denominator.

    *shakes head* back in the heyday when gamers were gods, they looked down upon the mountains like titans, they smiled like Apollo and stroked mustaches like the wings of eagles, when again in these days of dwarfs among midgets, will we see their like again?

    * strokes majestic beard*
    Edited by 1 at 27/01/10 @ 16:28

  • ignatiusjreilly #21 2 years ago

    ^ Hmm, beautifully written post. AA++ Would read again.

  • mizcicz #22 2 years ago

    i always knew it...but damn you for all that animal testing in other fields of ´military science´us navy!

  • Collymilad #23 2 years ago

    @TitusCrow

    Yeah games have dumbed down, but wasn't most of the difficulty in older games down to twitch gaming or extremely vague (i.e. badly made) game progression mechanics? I mean it's not like you had to be a genius to complete older games (or even to complete demon's souls) It's more about perseverance with these types of games rather than intelligence in my opinion.
    Edited by 2 at 27/01/10 @ 19:15

  • Gammerz #24 2 years ago

    "This idea of "fluid intelligence" was thought to be, up until now, impossible to train past the age of 20.": Didn't know that!

    "We know that videogames can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory."

    And video games can also affect your short term memory.

    - An aging (>20) gamer!
    Edited by 2 at 27/01/10 @ 20:57

  • Ryze #25 2 years ago

    ^

    No mate - you just need to stop smoking weed.

  • helo555 #26 2 years ago

    Does this apply to xbox live players as well? :p

  • dirk_aircool #27 2 years ago

    no,yes ,I dont know . I just keep seeing ' terrorists on the battlefield ' . which presumebly means people who's country has been unlawfuly invaded by the US.But what would I know my brain stopped learing 30 years ago.
    Edited by 2 at 28/01/10 @ 11:35

  • kwarive #28 2 years ago

    One fact is indisputable: Playing video game makes you better at ... playing videogames. As for the rest of these claim, well, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and I see no evidence here. I don't know, maybe the US navy thinks war is like a videogame. However anecdotal evidence I have collected informs me war is not very much like a videogame at all. I'm still waiting for my research to be published in the Lancet though. Then again so is Dr. Perez (I think both of us will be waiting a long time before that happens)

    Dr Perez clearly likes playing games and thinks hes figured out a way to convince his bosses that playing games at work is "research." Lucky bastard.

  • VMerken #29 2 years ago

    I know kung fu.