The study which was conducted bythe scientists from the university of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu fount that participants who spent 1 hour playing video games "Fortnite" experienced changes in brain activity.
The participants also demonstrated improved ability to focus on revelant information while screening out distractions.
The researchers recruited 29 male students to participate in the study. One group had at least 2 years of playing action video games and the other had fewer than 6 months if experience playing video games.
The group with the most experience, or the "Experts" were ranked top 20 percent of Fortnite players. The "Non-Experts" meanwhile, were ranked in the bottom 11 percent.
The players "Visual selective attention" was assessed by the researchers before and after playing Fortnite.
Visual selective attention is how scientists refer to the brain's ability to focus while simultaneouusly disregarding less relevant information.
Focusing on revelant information in this way uses up brain power, so scientists tent to believe that people who are very god at focusing their attention while filtering out distraction show a very efficient use of their brains.
Video game boosted brain activity.
The study authors measured visual selective attention with a test involving squares that flashed on different parts of a computer screen.
First, participants were brieflt shown a square in the center of the screen, which was followed by a square flashing elsewhere on the screen. The participants had to then tell the scientists where on the screen the square was, relative to the first square.
The participants brain activity was also monitered during the visual selective attention test using an electronecephalogram (EEG) machine.
Before playing the video game, the expert participants were fount to have stronger visual selective attention than the non-expert. and their EEG result showed more attention- related brain activity.
After playing Fortnite for 1 hour, both groups demonstrated improved visual selective attention, even reporting similar scores in the post game test.
Not only that, but researchers fount that the brain activity of non-experts increased after playing the game, to the extent that levels of brain activity between experts and non-experts were now comparable
Although the findings demonstrate a measurable increase in both brain activity and visual selective attention scores in participants after playing a video game for 1 hour, the authors explain that their findings do not tell us how long these effects might last.
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