Image: Family on driving game at Manchester Science Festival – Science Museum Group © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Research presented at Manchester Science Festival, carried out by an academic at the Science Museum, explores gaming’s potential cognitive benefits.
Contrary to the general belief that videogames do harm to the brain, the results of a study carried out by academics including the Science Museum Group’s Science Director suggests a correlation between gaming and improved cognition.
Science Director Roger Highfield is among four authors of a new paper which draws the conclusion.
Details of the findings will be presented by Prof Owen himself in the museum on 19 October as part of the Manchester Science Festival, running from 18-27 October at the Science and Industry Museum and across the city.
The paper reads “ … we found that more time spent playing video games was associated with better cognitive performance but was unrelated to mental health. We conclude that exercise and video gaming have differential effects on the brain, which may help individuals tailor their lifestyle choices to promote mental and cognitive health, respectively, across the lifespan.”
The findings are revealed as part of the Brain and Body study, a collaboration between Western University, Canada, and the Science and Industry Museum for the Manchester Science Festival.
Also carrying out the study was neuroscientist Professor Adrian Owen of Western University, who will present details of the results in the museum on 19 October as part of the Manchester Science Festival.
The results show that among the roughly 1000 people who finished all the tasks in the study, playing video games had a positive effect on an individual’s cognition, but did not seem to affect their mental health. Exercise, conversely, seemed to correlate with better mental health but had no effect on cognition.
“Playing video games was associated with improved cognitive abilities (but not better or worse mental health),” commented Prof Owen, who has spent more than a decade developing the tests, “whereas more physical activity (that is, more than 150 minutes per week, in accordance with the WHO guidelines) was associated with improved mental health (but not better or worse cognitive health),”
Prof Owen quantified the cognitive benefits of playing video games for five hours every week as “about the same as being 4.3 years younger. In other words, people who played video games around 10 hours per week performed cognitively like people 8.7 years younger than their age (who did not play video games).”
The paper is available in full here,
