John Tyler has passed on an interesting story about a number of scientific tests that show gaming can be good for exercising the mind similar to the way physical exertion exercises the body.New research has been carried out at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, that tested whether surgeons performing laparoscopic surgery were better at their jobs if they also enjoyed playing video games.
Laparoscopic or keyhole surgery is similar to gaming in that a joystick or other kind of controller is used to control a fiber-optic camera inserted within the patient's body, and the results suggest that an interest in gaming is a definite advantage:
“The results were really astounding,” he says. “First of all, if you played video game [at any time] in the past, it was found that you were significantly faster and, more importantly, you created fewer errors than people who had no previous video game experience. Then when we looked at whether you were a current video gamer, we found that if you played video games currently, you were over 30 percent better — faster, and created fewer errors — than someone who did not play video games at all.”
Another test by a psychology professor at the University of St. Louis found that gamers were faster and more efficient when asked to search for a specific object displayed among similar objects projected on a computer screen.Alas though, all this research doesn't mean staying up all night playing World of Warcraft will turn you into a genius:
The mental improvement from video games is clearly there. However, [Butch Rosser, director of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel] does point out that surgeons perform better with just three hours of video game play per week. Rosser goes on to say to kids “That Butch Rosser would not be here in this capacity if he played video games and did not have good grades, did not develop perseverance. And I would say to that child out there that thinks that they got a free pass to play video games carte blanche, I say ‘Nooo, sadly mistaken.”
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