Learning to play video games gives double benefits to older adults. In addition to improving manual dexterity, they also help keep ageing brains sharp.
A study by University of Illinois researchers found dramatic changes in cognitive skills of older video game players that weren’t directly related to skills related to playing the game. Previous studies designed to give training to improve specific cognitive skills, such as short-term memory, found that the improvements didn’t transfer to everyday life.
“When you train somebody on a task they tend to improve in that task, whatever it is, but it usually doesn’t transfer much beyond that skill or beyond the particular situation in which they learned it,” said professor Arthur Kramer.
Kramer and his colleagues wondered if skills learned in playing video games might transfer to improve everyday cognitive skills, especially those that decline most rapidly in ageing brains.
“Older people tend to fare less well on things that are called executive control processes,” Kramer said. “These include things like scheduling, planning, working memory, multitasking and dealing with ambiguity.”
The video game Rise of Nations was chosen for the study, and 40 older adults participated. Half were given 23.5 hours of training in playing the video game and the half received no training.
The adults who received training performed better in almost all assessments of cognitive skills, including their working memory and reasoning ability, and were significantly better in switching between tasks.
“This is the first such study of older adults, and it is the first to find such pronounced effects on cognitive skills not directly related to the skills learned in the video game,” said Kramer. “This is one mode in which older people can stay mentally fit, cognitively fit.”
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