Study: Action-filled video games boost eyesight

A recent study shows that playing action video games can boost part of eyesight called contrast sensitivity, one of the first parts of vision to be affected by aging.
Contrast sensitivity is the the ability to notice even minor changes in shades of grey against a uniform background which helps people in night driving. This ability is lost by ageing and by conditions such as such as amblyopia, also known as 'lazy eye'.

The research was conducted by a team comprising of Professors from Rochester University in New York ,Goldschleger Eye Research Institute and Tel Aviv University. The study says that that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently.

For the study, a group of students were divided into two groups. One group played the action games "Call of Duty 2" by Activision Blizzard Inc and Epic Games' "Unreal Tournament 2004." A second played Electronic Arts Inc's "The Sims 2," a game they said does not require as much hand-eye coordination.

The two groups played 50 hours of their assigned games over a time period of nine weeks. At the end of the training, those playing action games saw their ability to discern contrast improve by between 43 and 58 per cent, while the other group of players didn't show any improvement in their contrast sensitivity.

Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester who led the study team said:

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that contrast sensitivity can be improved by simple training.When people play action games, they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it, and we've seen the positive effect remains even two years after the training was over".

According to the study report, action video-game training may be a useful complement to eye-correction techniques.