Unit 1: Vocabulary from Readings 5

Decades of research examining video gaming and violence have failed to reach consensus among scientists.

Games have sometimes been praised or demonized, often without real data backing up those claims.

In long-term gamers and individuals who had volunteered to follow a video game training plan, the right hippocampus was enlarged.

The research into the effects of video gaming is still in its infancy and scientists are still scrutinizing what aspects of gaming impact what brain regions and how.

A team of researchers from the Florida State University has stated that people should be skeptical of adverts that promote an increase in the performance of the brain that results from brain training games.

In contrast, a study published in Nature found that through the use of a specially designed 3-D video game, cognitive performance could be improved in older adults and some of the adverse effects on the brain associated with aging, reversed.

A recent study conducted by neurobiologists at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) found that playing 3-D video games could also boost the formation of memories. Participants were allocated to either a group that played video games with a 2-D environment or a 3-D environment.

"If the target is to improve older adults’ cognitive control, reasoning, and higher-order cognitive skills, and stave off dementia and Alzheimer’s disease as long as possible, then maybe strategy games are the way to go,” informs Chandramallika Basak, assistant professor at the Center for Vital Longevity and School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.

There is evidence to suggest that video games may be a viable treatment for depression and improve memory and mood in adults with mild cognitive impairment.

In 2015 at the University of California, Irvine, a study was made to test the effects of playing video games on a part of our brains called the hippocampus, which is part of the limbic system and helps spatial memory and the transition of information from short-term memory to long-term memory.

Previously it had been shown that an enriched environment had a positive effect on memory in animals.

They were then given a few tests including an enumeration test and a mnemonic similarity test.

They were then given a few tests including an enumeration test and a mnemonic similarity test.

Video games are pretty fun, but most of us don’t expect much more than that from entertainment media. But what if a fun video game also, conveniently, helped you succeed more in school and in life? That’s the idea behind the plethora of “brain training” apps on the market today.

The logic behind these brain training apps is based on the idea that certain brain circuits are involved in a type of cognitive performance called delayed discounting, which is your preference for choosing immediate, smaller rewards versus waiting for a bigger reward, as well as one called risk sensitivity—whether you choose reliable or risky rewards.

Scientists have found that choosing immediate and risky rewards is associated with unhealthy behavior like smoking, drinking, eating poorly, and generally being more prone to addiction.

The thing about Lumosity (and other brain training games and apps), says Joaquin Anguera, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of San Francisco School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, is that there are a number of different modules and games to choose from—and all of them work different neural networks in the brain.

Anguera says the other problem could be that the training was not specific enough to cause a change. The key, he says, is that the game needs to target the right cognitive processes—in the right population—to help with specific deficits.