A subsequent randomised longitudinal training experiment demonstrated that first-person shooting games reduce grey matter within the hippocampus in participants using non-spatial memory strategies.
And the rest of it, which changes the whole character of the article...
Conversely, participants who use hippocampus-dependent spatial strategies showed increased grey matter in the hippocampus after training. A control group that trained on 3D-platform games displayed growth in either the hippocampus or the functionally connected entorhinal cortex. A third study replicated the effect of action video game training on grey matter in the hippocampus. These results show that video games can be beneficial or detrimental to the hippocampal system depending on the navigation strategy that a person employs and the genre of the game.
So does that mean that people who play games that have maps and that keep the maps in their heads develop grey matter, but people who just blindly run around the map and don't learn where things are will lose grey matter?
What games DON'T require spatial memory? I'm having a hard time thinking of one.
A lot of modern games that offer convenience features like GPS navigation in GTA or the quest markers in Skyrim. I prefer playing GTA with the GPS turned off because it forces me to actually learn the lay of the land.
Regardless of fancy navigation mechanics I don't think I've ever played a 3D environment game where after some time I didn't memorize the map to some degree. I assume this is the case for most people that play games.
I'm more concerned for people that drive around using a GPS in an actual car and somehow never learn the city layout.
Same. Sad thing is, as many of these virtual spaces that I have memorized, I've never utilized them for directed memorization efforts for other information using the "Method of the Loci" or "Mind Palace" techniques.
Trying to do this on my Zelda: Breath of the Wild master mode replay. Turned on the "Pro" HUD, which deactivates the map and requires more geography and landmark based navigation... surprisingly fun.
My experience with this kind of thing (like turning off quest markers in oblivion/skyrim) is that the game has been designed with quest markers in mind, and by turning them off the navigation systems stop making much sense. ie the map lacks "natural" markers, and because quest markers exist large view distance isnt very nexessary (and thus non-optimized) so the only larger objects to use can't be seen from a far distance, and the map is just generally designed without interconnectivity or even proper consistency, because the connections are through the markers.
Games depending on such GPS systems tend to be significantly hampered by its removal (which makes sense), and thus such basic removal is rarely a sufficient fix.
The only reason I'd imagine BotW might work fine is that Nintendo has made open(ish) world games before, and as far as I can remember, have never made much use of such systems. More likely than not, the game was designed without markers, and markers added after the fact; which is clearly untrue of most other modern open-world games
That reminds me of the game Firewatch where they gave you a compass and a paper-like map and you had to use landmarks that you recognized on the map and in the environment to get around.
I'd like to see more large scale adventure games like this.
Sadly it's much harder to play without mapping "features" in modern games. In Morrowind quests included detailed (or sometimes intentionally not) directions in the journal text because that was the only way for you to find the objective. In Skyrim the journal entries are far less detailed because the game designers expect you to just follow the magic floating icon.
I remember reading a study about different navigation strategies. In one strategy you developed a mental map of the area and you mentally navigated that map as a means to navigate the real world. Another strategy was the landmark strategy where you would learn procedural directions between landmarks and so navigation relied much less on mental maps and much more on procedural memory. I suspect these different strategies are at play in the responses noted in the study.
Wondering this as well. Most games do use spacial memory although some shooters are pretty mindless and navigating requires very little thought or effort (think Diablo 3's more linear maps where it's see enemy, shoot, move forward, see enemy, shoot, move forward, etc).
It seems to me like games like Portal / Talos Principle / Amnesia would rely on spacial memory more than most games out there. Can anyone confirm or deny if this hypothesis is correct?
I played a lot of video games growing up, particularly first person shooters. I feel like I just had an epiphany. I am incredibly terrible with direction sense in real life. I wonder if video games and relying on map overlays had something to do with it.
Also, isn't running around blindly how you learn a map? I know that's how I 'trained' myself on CoD4 until I knew the maps inside out. So was I killing grey matter before creating it?
Learning a map and using predictive spatial strategies seem to be distinguished in the study.
It's been a long time since I touched the pro circuit of any game, but in Q3 the best players were the ones who could predict where you were in addition to where they needed to go. Pretty different skill, and it took a ton of very dedicated practice.
Didn't read TFA but I assume that points to mostly single player experiences or procedurally generated content.
I.e. In the COD4 campaign you don't need to know the map, you can just blindly run through the level killing what's in front of you until you hit a progress trigger.
There is in fact a plants vs zombies fps for the xbox (plants vs zombies garden warfare). I've only played the second one in that sub-series, but it seems to have non-linear maps.
> participants who use hippocampus-dependent spatial strategies
My first questions were: "How was this measured/detected? How might I know whether I used these strategies when I play games?"
The answer from your Nature link is very detailed, too detailed to reproduce here. See the section titled, "4 on 8 virtual maze". IIUC they partitioned the groups into "spatial" vs "response" learners by determining whether they navigated a maze while using a memorized sequence of landmarks or without.
Interesting, I played a lot of PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds last weekend and this does bring a few things to mind: some FPSes are highly reliant upon twitch reactions and that sort of deep reptile brain panic response. It improves your reflexes and precision, but likely punishes higher order thinking.
Other games encourage you to plan long term and work within systems.
I think these exercise very different parts of your brain - is it possible there's simply a trade off here?
On the other hand, single player in call of duty is about the most mind numbing thing it's possible to play, there's no competition, it's just kill guys and advance in a straight line. Would be interesting to compare with more competitive or open world games.
I played a lot of PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds last weekend [...] It improves your reflexes and precision, but likely punishes higher order thinking.
I'd argue that spatial and temporal considerations are critical in PUBG. Sure, it's not real-time strategy kind of planning, but understanding your exposure to others based on elevation & movement speed, resource management, blue/white perimeter placement and strategy to get to the objective while avoiding enemy LOS does encourage higher order thinking.
In contrast, I would like to point out another research paper [0] about the possible "Cognitive benefits of computer games for older adults". I think that it's fascinating that we're living in a world of evolving, new art and entertainment forms.
I think what they're describing isn't related to video games. It's just that using your brain a certain way makes it better at that type of task. The idea that playing Mario 64 improves the spatial reasoning isn't surprising because most levels are large and open and require spatial reasoning whereas first person shooters often featured tight, indoor corridors where the player cannot observe landmarks easily from different locations and must therefore hardcore directions into their memory.
The study is interesting but I find the term ‘action game’ too imprecise to actually be useful. Having just skimmed through the paper it seems like what they actually experimented with were highly linear games which require little to no perceptual mapping of the world into memory because you do not have to backtrack much or at all. But that is an artifact of that particular games linear level design, it has nothing to do with ‘action’.
"Thirteen first-person shooting games from the Call of Duty, Battlefield, Killzone, Medal of Honor and Resistance: Fall of Man series were chosen based on their highly similar gameplay tasks and demands. Participants only played the single player campaigns and did not play any multiplayer components of the games."
Single player for most of these games is very boring and requires little thinking. They need to add another category to this study where they are playing competitive multiplayer fps. Maybe even specifically strategy game types like capture the flag.
Agreed. The thrill of playing real opponents who quickly learn from patterns in your behaviour forces you to constantly adjust while also observing their unique behaviours which can be used to your own advantage. Far more challenging and requires on-the-fly tactics and strategies. I'd be quite surprised if multiplayer games didn't lead to more brain matter.
I get the feeling software engineers are going to end up net positive in grey matter regardless of their gaming habits just because of the nature of the job.
"After 90 hours of playing first-person shooter games..."
90 hours in the gym @ 3 hours / week = 7.5 months of exercise
At this point one expect to see physical changes in the mirror.
Why would it be any different in the brain?
A much broader implication may be that dedicating around 90 hours to something is the point at which your brain will start to show physical signs of adaptation.
I'll be right back, I'll go spend 4 years with two full time jobs, and dozens of training groups in order to answer this question. And then I'll have a non-definitive, very specific answer you probably didn't expect and which will raise more questions than it answers. Science is hard.
>For example, real time strategy games such as Rise of Nations have been shown to have positive effects on both visual attention and executive function.53 However, the impact of such real time strategy games on the hippocampus remains to be determined.
The study only looked at first person shooters like CoD: Modern Warfare 2 (action training) third person platformers like Mario 64 (mario training) and first person RPG shooters like Borderlands 2 (aRPG training). It only links to another study that allegedly looked at strategy games.
I will never forget being verbally abused for the first time on xmas day 1996 Doom Deathmatch. Funny stuff, about 2 minutes of insults and death threats.
The sad thing is nowadays this is bullying, sexist, racist, trolling and so on. It just made me laugh. I think the trash talk was always in this community.
>I think the trash talk was always in this community.
This seems true, considering John Gabriel formulated his Greater Internet F*ckwad Theory[0] way back in 2004. But it's not a good thing. Some people just want to play video games without being subjected to racist, sexist, and ableist harassment.
I disagree. I am pretty sure that the guys saying they wanted me to die didn't actually want me to die. It was just a way to taunt.
It is absolutely ridiculous that someone who has never seen me, met me, know where I live, any of my history, my sexuality, my family can possibly achieve any of emotion that could ever be taken seriously enough to be considered bullying. It is stretching the term almost far enough to be meaningless.
IMO, those types of games tend to attract more of those types of people. Your comment reads as though it encourages those traits to manifest themselves in people. I play a lot of FPS and know what you're talking about, but I don't see how the games themselves are encouraging that so much as attracting people already pre-disposed to those beliefs.
Shitty anecdote to counteract your own shitty anecdote: the most corrosive community I've ever encountered were those of MOBAs. Smite, League of Legends, DOTA 2, I've never seen such rage before in any FPSs.
It really makes sense; moba's require a much greater dependence on your allies' ability than most FPS games do, so they're naturally much more sensitive to it. The key thing that drives it is that
1. One, or multiple, bad teamates make the match not at all fun (because the game snowbals heavily)
2. It wastes an 30-60 min of your time on a match predetermined to lose
3. The games are primarily played with randoms, and the matchmaking system has never been any good (starting from the original kick anyone who has to dl the game in wc3)
4. Player age ranges drastically, and younger players tend to be both worse and prone to raging (often fueled by their own misplays)
And you always get people who are relentlessly trying to avoid any kind of contention, which is more irritating than anything else.
FPS games really only feature points 3 & 4, as they're predominantly solo experiences (except by taunting the enemy).
But, imo, these things are both natural to the way games are designed, and really are not as bad as made out to be. Its an inherent piece of the games, and anyone going in with antithetical ideals is simply trying to play a different game (which is what the LoL anti-toxic developers pull, consistently misunderstanding the game in terms of its community, design and balance, as they try to rip apart the game to meet their ideals).
It may just be me, but I've never had any issue with profane public lobbies playing either Destiny or Overwatch. I don't even need to mute it, typically there's little or any chatter.
If I have a party on PS4 or am on my usual Mumble lounge its typically by the book raid planning. I've seen videos of really inappropriate and childish banter on other games so I know how bad it can get.
I'm surprised people don't just mute you for making so much noise in voice chat. That's what I do whenever someone plays music or other irrelevant stuff on their mic.
A subsequent randomised longitudinal training experiment demonstrated that first-person shooting games reduce grey matter within the hippocampus in participants using non-spatial memory strategies.
And the rest of it, which changes the whole character of the article...
Conversely, participants who use hippocampus-dependent spatial strategies showed increased grey matter in the hippocampus after training. A control group that trained on 3D-platform games displayed growth in either the hippocampus or the functionally connected entorhinal cortex. A third study replicated the effect of action video game training on grey matter in the hippocampus. These results show that video games can be beneficial or detrimental to the hippocampal system depending on the navigation strategy that a person employs and the genre of the game.
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201715...
Interesting study, terrible article.