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Playing shooters causes damage to the brain

Toadthemushroom

Toadthemushroom

Member
Playing 3-D video games (platformers?) can boost memory formation, UCI study finds

For their research, Craig Stark and Dane Clemenson of UCI’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory recruited non-gamer college students to play either a video game with a passive, two-dimensional environment (“Angry Birds”) or one with an intricate, 3-D setting (“Super Mario 3D World”) for 30 minutes per day over two weeks.

Before and after the two-week period, the students took memory tests that engaged the brain’s hippocampus, the region associated with complex learning and memory. They were given a series of pictures of everyday objects to study. Then they were shown images of the same objects, new ones and others that differed slightly from the original items and asked to categorize them. Recognition of the slightly altered images requires the hippocampus, Stark said, and his earlier research had demonstrated that the ability to do this clearly declines with age. This is a large part of why it’s so difficult to learn new names or remember where you put your keys as you get older.

Students playing the 3-D video game improved their scores on the memory test, while the 2-D gamers did not. The boost was not small either. Memory performance increased by about 12 percent, the same amount it normally decreases between the ages of 45 and 70.
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M

mclem

Member
They recruited 51 men and 46 women and asked them to play a variety of popular shooter games like Call of Duty, Killzone and Borderlands 2, as well as so-called 3D games such as Super Mario, for a total of 90 hours.
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Bwuh?

I'm trying to work out what they actually mean, here. It's probably not really meaning to sound condescending, but all titles listed are fundamentally 3D. I guess it might be referring to the fact that Mario is more focussed on spatial awareness?
 
S

Salty Rice

Member
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H

horkrux

Member
Of course games like Call of Duty, Killzone and Borderlands are going to melt your brain. If they had played something like Halo, Quake or Doom, the result would have been different.
 
G

groansey

Member
What about shooters where you have to think?

Siege and Splatoon studies please, theyre all I've played for two years.
 
F

Filthy Casual

Member
played 100 of hours of shooters since the age of 12, could have come out with this before I fried my brain. Looks like I'll have to get a Switch for Mario...
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z

Ozzy Onya A2Z

Member
Wait so we could claim a disability pension, not have to work and game even more? Win win :)

All in moderation something something...
 
U

Ushay

Member
Good thing I'm big on platformers and RPGs then. Phew!

Note to self - keep son away from filthy casual shooters.
 
Surface of Me

Surface of Me

I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
horkrux said:
Of course games like Call of Duty, Killzone and Borderlands are going to melt your brain. If they had played something like Halo, Quake or Doom, the result would have been different.
Click to expand...

Yeah I cant speak for Killzone, but CoD and BL get pretty repetitive/mindless. Im betting more dynamic games like Siege, BF, or Halo dont rely as much on this "auto pilot" sector of the brain.
 
G

glaurung

Member
These half-baked studies are a dime a dozen. One day they prove one thing, tomorrow another. Now we have to endure a media wave of clickbait articles growing fiercer and fiercer in scandalousness. The apex will be a tabloid article titled "Call of D*** turned my son into a tomato".

Bah. Next they'll be telling that snorting GFuel gets you high.
 
Melon Husk

Melon Husk

Member
Triggerhappytel said:
So if you play a good mix of both the effects of each cancel the other out?!
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Like Quake? CoD levels have a weak 3D component as far as I know. Killzone and Call of Duty are about as brainless as shooters go.

Overblown results or not, 90 hours of them would mothball my brain too, no need to test that.
 
K

Kinokou

Member
Ninety hours of playing shooter games tended to lead to hippocampus atrophy, however playing for the same duration on 3D challenges, which rely more on spatial orientation instinctive responses, increased grey matter within the hippocampal memory system.
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Might be reading it wrong, but aren't spatial orientation/awareness and instinct responses what shooters are all about?
 
C

Chronospherics

Member
All of those poorly designed platforming challenges forced into FPS were actually doing you a favour - stimulating your hippocampus.

It'd be interesting to see if these effects are also observed in mobility orientated shooters like Titanfall, which are likely to place considerable demands on your spatial reasoning.

Also worth noting, that the sample size isn't especially small for cognitive neuroscience. You can produce statistically robust research with small sample sizes and methods such as fMRI and EEG.

In general, it's better to produce this research with a smaller sample size and then try to determine if the findings can be replicated in order to determine their reliability (rather than using ridiculously large sample sizes from the outset), as this is just more cost-effective for the researcher. Expecting research that uses methods like fMRI to feature thousands of participants is just unrealistic. The sample size looks reasonable enough to suggest that these findings are likely to be reliable, but obviously it would be good to see if they can be replicated, and how different types of games, or sub-genres of shooters may have distinct effects.

Kinokou said:
Might be reading it wrong, but aren't spatial orientation/awareness and instinct responses what shooters are all about?
Click to expand...

Indeed, it doesn't quite make sense. Previous studies have reported things like enlarged hippocampus of taxi drivers in real world settings, proposing their learning of the environment stimulates the hippocampus. Now, why would the same not be observed for players navigating large-scale virtual environments? I wonder if there's a difference between players that actually seek to learn the maps / layout, and traverse them efficiently, and those that just want to find the path forward.

Multiplayer gameplay, is very different, because you're not retracing footsteps. You're not looking at landmarks, and the map, and forcing yourself to recollect the spatial structure of the level. That likely, has different cognitive demands to something such as playing through Call of Duty's campaign mode, where the player isn't required to navigate anything, or even be spatially aware of their surroundings (only what's ahead of them).
 
Melon Husk

Melon Husk

Member
Kinokou said:
Might be reading it wrong, but aren't spatial orientation/awareness and instinct responses what shooters are all about?
Click to expand...
Yeah, and there are several studies where they've found an increase in those skills.

1. 2010 - Playing fast-action video games helps decision-making.
http://www.economist.com/node/17035943

2.
https://www.polygon.com/2013/1/30/3...mproves-learning-abilities-cognitive-function

3.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201502/cognitive-benefits-playing-video-games

Most of the research involves effects of action video games—that is, games that require players to move rapidly, keep track of many items at once, hold a good deal of information in their mind at once, and make split-second decisions.
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On-rails single-player shooters like Call of Duty are lacking in that department...
 
T

TheKeyPit

Banned
...however playing for the same duration on 3D challenges, which rely more on spatial orientation instinctive responses, increased grey matter within the hippocampal memory system.
Click to expand...

Everyone should play Rainbow Six Siege. Learning the maps is a 3D challenge by itself.
 
B

besada

Banned
If a mere 90 hours of fps shooting damages your brain, then we are well and truly fucked. Although it would explain a lot of things.

But I'll wait until there's more evidence to worry about it.

Who am I kidding? I'm going to keep shooting imaginary people in the face forever. I think Orwell said something about that.
 
C

Cymbal Head

Banned
I think the common sense answer to any of this is that the lifetime effects of any almost any activity are far too subtle and complex to be discovered by a single study, and that anything you do changes your brain.

Playing Mario doesn't make you a genius any more than learning to play piano makes you a genius, and 90 hours of COD isn't going to ruin your hippocampus or whateverthefuck.
 
D

DoubleTake

Member
StriKeVillain said:
The study on playing fighting games online is really going to shock some people.
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Something something, increased anger, something something, higher sodium.

I would be interested to see what one of these studies says about FG players. What with the huge amount of information about move properties we have to make note of, call to memory, and act on in a matter of seconds sometimes less.
 
M

Matthew23

Member
I believe it. After playing something mindless with an endless reward loop like Diablo for multiple hours I feel like I need a coffee to even out. I figured it was the lack of exercise from being slouched in the chair for so long but I don't think it's the same with every game. For the sake of my hippocampus I will have to experiment with some memory tests.
 
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