Do video games make you smarter? One surprising genre leads the rest
Do video games make you smarter? One surprising genre leads the rest
Do video games make you smarter? One surprising genre leads the rest
By Richard E. Mayer
January 15, 2023
Summary
We want to know whether playing video games can increase cognitive skills: In other words, can game playing make you smarter? We have performed experiments, conducted meta-analyses of research literature, and even produced a couple of books: Computer Games for Learning and Handbook of Game-Based Learning.
One half plays a video game targeting that skill for two or more hours over many sessions; the other half engages in some other activity, like playing a word-search game.
A careful review of published scientific research shows that most off-the-shelf video games do not improve cognitive skills.
There appears to be one genre of commercial games that can improve cognitive skills - and it might surprise you.
Playing action video games, including first-person shooter games, can continually exercise your perceptual attention with immediate feedback, under a variety of ever-changing contexts, and with increasing levels of challenge.
Why do these games work while others do not? Our games are designed with six principles: focus on a well-specified target skill, provide repeated practice, give immediate feedback, maintain increasing levels of challenge, provide varying contexts for exercising the skill, and make sure the game is enjoyable.
With studies like these in hand, we can look forward to a future when researchers and developers collaborate to construct fun games that train specific cognitive skills.
Reference
Mayer, R. E. (2023, January 15). Do video games make you smarter? One surprising genre leads the rest. Inverse. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://www.inverse.com/gaming/video-game-intelligence