Chapter 3, Section 2, Exercise 067bd
Playing Video Games
A new study provides some evidence that playing action video games strengthens a person's ability to translate sensory information quickly into accurate decisions. Researchers had 23 male volunteers with an average age of 20 look at moving arrays on a computer screen and indicate the direction in which the dots were moving.1 Half of the volunteers (11 men) reported playing action video games at least five times a week for the previous year, while the other 12 reported no video game playing in the previous year. The response time and the accuracy score were both measured. A 95% confidence interval for the mean response time for game players minus the mean response time for non-players is -1.8 to -1.2 seconds, while a 95% confidence interval for mean accuracy score for game players minus mean accuracy score for non-players is -4.2 to +5.8.
1Green, et al., "Improved probabilistic inference as a general learning mechanism with action video games," Current Biology, 2010; 20(September 14): 1.
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