Vision Benefits with Action Video Games

An interesting study was published in the January issue of Psychological Science. C. Shawn Green, a grad student in Brain and Cognitive Sciences over at University of Rochester has teamed up once again with Dr. Daphne Bavelier to produce an article in Green’s area of research interest, “visual plasticity.” Green is interested in the relationship video games, particularly “action” video games, hold on visual plasticity. The pair has produced four research articles, two book chapters, and a slew of conference presentations on related topics.

This particular paper indicates the subjects’ spatial resolution was improved through action video games, meaning, for instance, that small type crammed in close together becomes easier to make out.

Here is a portion of their abstract, which sums up the study very nicely: “Playing action video games enhances several different aspects of visual processing; however, the mechanisms underlying this improvement remain unclear. Here we show that playing action video games can alter fundamental characteristics of the visual system, such as the spatial resolution of visual processing across the visual field. To determine the spatial resolution of visual processing, we measured the smallest distance a distractor could be from a target without compromising target identification…”

Spatial resolution is an interesting research angle. Seems easy enough to measure, and may someday produce research that is actionable for producers of educational video games. If game producers can point to Green and Bavelier’s research that shows benefits, whether for treating lazy eye, increasing reading skills, or anything related, acceptance for classroom appropriate video games may increase.

References

C.S. Green, D. Bavelier. (2007). Action-video-game experience alters the spatial resolution of vision. Psychological Science 18(1), 88-94.

Are Video Games Good Practice for Surgeons?

Newswires and the blogosphere were atwitter this week over results of a study published in Archives of General Surgery that indicated physicians with video game experience performed better at laparoscopic surgeries than those without video game experience.

Not mentioned much in the news coverage was the fact that only 33 surgeons were studied. This low number will no doubt lead to calls for additional experiments before any strong conclusions can be considered. Indeed, the journal published an accompanying critique that cautioned against too much optimism concerning the results. Nonetheless, the findings were interesting enough to grab the attention of the general public. Several news outlets carried the story including CNN, the Washington Post, Reuters, and others.

Quote of interest from the paper: “Surgeons who had played video games in the past for more than three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, were 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better overall than surgeons who never played video games … Current video game players made 32 percent fewer errors, were 24 percent faster, and scored 26 percent better overall than their nonplayer colleagues.”

Laparoscopic surgery involves fine hand-eye control with surgeons observing progress through monitors. Testing for speed and accuracy was performed on simulators designed to help train physicians for the procedure.

The authors also tested the surgeons on various arcade-style games, maintaining that surgeons with superior laparoscopic skills were better at video games than surgeons who were less skilled in laparoscopic surgery. In this way, they attempted to show the opposite of their findings is also true. Good at surgery = good at video games; good at video games = good at surgery. In this they succeeded, measuring the physicians at play using the games Super Monkey Ball 2, Star Wars Racer Revenge, and Silent Scope.

As I’ve pointed out elsewhere in this blog, by necessity the study used an easy to measure approach. In this case, the researchers took the tack of measuring mistakes made during simulated surgery, then comparing scores on traditional arcade games. The authors conclude that video games may be a good addition to medical training regimens.

Just as we have seen the ongoing adoption of video games in military circles, the study shows that video games are excellent for medical training purposes. It brings up the old training versus learning debate. With educational objectives, the benefits of video games remain more difficult to measure. Nonetheless, positive news on benefits of video games is a welcome relief from the usual salacious fare offered up by the media.

References

Rosser, J.C., Lynch, P.J, Cuddihy, L., Gentile, D.A., Klonsky, J., Merrell, R. (2007, February). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st Century. Archives of Surgery, 142(2). 181-186.

Curet, M.J. (2007, February). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st century—Invited critique. Archives of Surgery, 142(2). 186.

An online version of the article is available by subscription here:
http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/142/2/181

Second Life vs. World of Warcraft

Two virtual worlds are out there which have grabbed the attention of the literati, the technorati, and most everybody else. One world has been subject to endless speculation on how it might shape the future of academia, society, and the very fabric of our daily existence. The other has been duly noted by elitists and pundits for its success and popularity, but largely ignored as a source of social significance. The world that is the darling of academic pundits is Second Life. The huge commercial success is World of Warcraft.

Second Life (SL) is a game-like environment, but it does not really pose as a game, per se. It proposes to serve as a social platform. It is a virtual interactive environment (VIE), and it holds many similarities to a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Users login and assume control of digital puppets (avatars), and interact with one another. Users have control over their environments, and can purchase items such as clothing for their avatars. But there the gaming comparisons end. There are few other game-like objectives in SL: no levels to attain, no bosses to defeat. Perhaps consequently, then, SL is viewed as a serious platform for societal change and educational benefit.

World of Warcraft (WoW) is much more popular than Second Life. Although the population of SL is unknown for certain, the most enthusiastic estimates range somewhere in the low hundred thousands. WoW recently topped 8.5 million subscribers worldwide. WoW’s population is easier to count than SL’s. WoW subscribers pay around $15/month (or slightly less if longer periods are purchased up front). Count the number of active subscribers, and one can come close to an accurate estimate of active members, since presumably those not active would let their monthly payments lapse.

SL offers free memberships. If users send money to Linden Labs, SL’s corporate parent, they receive added benefits such as the right to own virtual real estate. Lots of folks come in and try out SL, but many don’t stick around for very long. If they don’t make a social connection, they don’t tend to stay.

So, SL is a social world, and is not nearly as popular an online destination as WoW, a pure gaming environment. This remains true despite the fact that SL is more or less free and WoW is relatively expensive. Clay Shirky, over at NYU, writes for Many2Many (“A group weblog on social software”). In a recent entry, he offers a good history of previous comparisons between gaming sites and social sites (i.e., Ultima Online vs. Alphaworld), and an explanation for their disparities in popularities, even when both can mix in some elements from the other.

First, Shirky writes, game rules are simple and appealing, offering an escape from the mundane of the real world. Second, the difficulties inherent in good MMORPGs make them more engaging and fun, both of which seem to be missing from less complex social sites.

Third, despite graphical representations that only approximate the real world, users willingly engage in video gaming environments that are by necessity limited in nature … and suspend their disbelief. This is an argument that has been made before, BTW, most notably by Laurel, (1991). Shirky describes this more precisely as “goal-directed visual filtering.” But, he argues, video environments that are not set up for gaming (like social sites) are judged much more harshly, with their users less willing to suspend disbelief.

What I find interesting is the difference in seriousness SL is given in the press and in academics compared to WoW. SL is the place to be for educators right now, especially higher ed. For instance, Karl Kapp over at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania notes in his blog that he is requiring students to create content in SL this semester. He joins a host of other college classroom efforts in that vein. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is jumping on the SL bandwagon, too, offering conference meetings online through the service.

With WoW more popular, more successful, and more profitable than any other virtual world product out there, one would think there would be more academic interest in the product. However, the opposite seems true. SL is less popular, but considered more viable for learning. I’m sure most of this has to do with the inherent customizability of SL. WoW offers little customization to its users; the terms of service forbid users from customizing almost everything within the environment, except their user interface which can be modded at will. But the content, the environment, the quests and so forth; all are pre-scripted by the developers.

Ultimately, educators need to have the ability to customize content so they can mold it to what they are teaching. Thus, social environments such as SL will continue to be more popular with educators than rigid gaming environments like WoW. The converse is probably also true … gaming environments will continue to be more popular than social environments for the public at large, in part due to the fact that the games will be all laid out for the players with no modifications needed.

References

Laurel, B. (1991). On dramatic interaction. Verbum 3(3). 6-7.

Xbox Controllers for Military Use

Last week I was involved in an interesting exercise up at UNT where a group of graduate students sat around playing with modern video games. I say modern, to distinguish them from casual games such as Windows Solitaire or Bejeweled or one of the many other free and easy-to-access titles with which most people are familiar.

The game our group spent the most time with was Mortal Kombat IV, played on the Xbox. I am somewhat familiar with the Mortal Kombat series, recalling the arcade title from my youth which swallowed a few of my quarters back in the day, and I’m familiar with the Xbox, myself a proud owner of the latest Xbox 360. What was most intriguing about watching folks in the room (ranging in age from mid-thirties to mid-forties) was the reaction folks had with the Xbox controller.

The game itself provided much amusement, as grad students vicariously duked it out with one another; much laughter and good natured fun ensued. What was intriguing in the exercise was to watch as people, perhaps for the first time, learned to use the Xbox controller. Once one person figured out the key to maneuvering their virtual fighter on the screen, the information was passed along. As each person took a turn with the controls, they struggled and caught on and were eventually able to make their characters do something. It’s a complicated controller, with multiple joysticks and buttons. It can be rather intimidating to a first timer.

This exercise reminded me of a recent article on the Army.mil site that made the rounds on Digg.com early in February. The article showed a live fire exercise at Ft. Bliss, in which a soldier was pictured guiding a military robot using an Xbox controller. It turns out that many military items are specced to include USB controllers, and the Xbox controller is indeed USB-based.

The US Military is one of the most efficient organizations in the world when it comes to training people. In just a few months the military can take 18-year-old recruits and turn them into specialized soldiers. Apparently, according to one of the comments on Digg, our military is using Xbox controllers because many of the recruits are already familiar with the device. This speeds training when helping soldiers learn how to operate specialized equipment.

This line of thinking, of course, is absolutely brilliant. Why waste time training kids on the controls of some device when one can simply plug in a joystick which they already know and love?

 

 

References:

Army News Service (2007, February 2). Soldiers testing FCS technology give thumbs up. [Online]. Available:
http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/02/02/1636-soldiers-testing-
fcs-technology-give-thumbs-up/

 

Game Violence: Correlation Is not Causation

Ars Technica notes an intriguing paper by Karen Sternheimer over at USC in the American Sociological Association’s publication, Contexts. The article makes for an interesting read, and supports many of the points I’ve made here. Basically, Sternheimer asserts an oft repeated (but rarely acknowledged) point that correlation studies simply do not prove causation. Just because the Columbine killers played Doom does not mean that Doom caused them to go on a shooting rampage. One could just as implausibly point out that most murderers brush their teeth; ergo, teeth-brushing makes people want to kill. Sternheimer notes that studies showing links between violent behavior and video games don’t tend to consider other contributing factors to violence such as home life and socio-economic backgrounds.

Sternheimer offers a neat summary of news articles appearing since 1997 that overwhelmingly decry video games as fostering school violence. The only problem is that statistically, school shootings are way down; in fact they are such rare occurrences that the FBI does not have enough data to create a profile of likely school shooters. So, while a purported link between video games and school shootings have been beaten into the public consciousness, the exact opposite has been taking place.

Video games became what Sternhemier labels as “folk devils,” or convenient scapegoats for politicians and the press to use in explaining otherwise inexplicable acts of violence. Alas, it is too easy for politicians and media types to paint with a broad brush. Their thinking might go something like this: “Some shooters played video games. Therefore, all video games are bad. And now, some idiots out there are trying to use video games for educational purposes …”

References:

Sternheimer, K. (2007, Winter). Do video games kill? Contexts 6(1). 13-17.
[Online]. Available:
http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdfplus/10.1525/ctx.2007.6.1.13?