Playing 3-D video games boosts memory formation
Playing three-dimensional video games can boost the formation of memories, according to University of California, Irvine neurobiologists.
Along with adding to the trove of research that shows these games can improve eye-hand coordination and reaction time, this finding shows the potential for novel virtual approaches to helping people who lose memory as they age or suffer from dementia. Study results appear in The Journal of Neuroscience.
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.
Students playing the 3-D video game had improved scores on a memory test, while the 2-D gamers had 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.
“First, the 3-D games have a few things the 2-D ones do not,” Clemenson said. “They’ve got a lot more spatial information in there to explore. Second, they’re much more complex, with a lot more information to learn. Either way, we know this kind of learning or memory not only stimulates but requires the hippocampus.”
Stark added that it’s unclear whether the overall amount of information and complexity in the 3-D game or the spatial relationships and exploration is stimulating the hippocampus. “This is one question we’re following up on,” he said.
Unlike typical brain training programs, the professor of neurobiology & behavior pointed out, video games are not created with specific cognitive processes in mind but rather are designed to immerse users in the characters and adventure. They draw on many cognitive processes, including visual, spatial, emotional, motivational, attentional, critical thinking, problem-solving and working memory.
“It’s quite possible that by explicitly avoiding a narrow focus on a single … cognitive domain and by more closely paralleling natural experience, immersive video games may be better suited to provide enriching experiences that translate into functional gains,” Stark said.
The next step for him and his colleagues is to determine if environmental enrichment – either through 3-D video games or real-world exploration experiences – can reverse the hippocampal-dependent cognitive deficits present in older populations.
Category: Features, Technology & Devices
