Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Concerns are often raised about the impact that playing video games may have on cognition and behavior, whether gameplay is intense and protracted as with competitive Esports or whether it is more casual gameplay. Work in our lab and others, however, has shown that at least some classes of games can improve memory function. In particular, playing immersive 3D games that provide rich experiences and novelty improve memory on tasks that rely upon the hippocampus in effects that mirror the effects of “environmental enrichment” in numerous rodent studies. Our goal in the present study was to determine whether even modest amounts of gameplay (~30 min/day for 4 weeks) would result in improved memory performance in middle-aged adults. Not only is this demographic potentially highly receptive to gaming (they make up a significant portion of Esports viewers and of game players), but interventions in middle age may be a prime time for reducing later age-related cognitive decline. Here, we found that the benefits in middle age paralleled effects previously observed in young adults as playing Minecraft, showing improved memory performance on a hippocampal dependent memory task.
Institution: University of California, Irvine
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,900
Awards: G1053905225, G1458362881, G1492531059, G2142974134, Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, The Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of California, Irvine, G5519260701, G6886011585, G731022846, G7857944114, The Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of California, Irvine
OpenAlex ID: W3185654331