Video games have definitely taken over the world as a form of entertainment, with kids and adults alike engaging in the fun. Most people also play video games as a means to vent their stress or anger and studies have also proven their efficacy as a treatment for depression. Now, a study – in support of video games – has said that people who indulge in the pastime regularly are better learners. Scientists found that gamers performed significantly better at a learning competition showed increased activity in the relevant brain regions.

The researchers from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany studied 17 volunteers who played action-based games on the computer or a console for more than 15 hours a week. The control group consisted of 17 volunteers who did not play video games on a regular basis. Both teams did the weather prediction task, a test to investigate the learning of probabilities. The researchers simultaneously recorded the brain activity of the participants via magnetic resonance imaging.

The participants were shown a combination of three cue cards with different symbols. They should estimate whether the card combination predicted Sun or rain and got a feedback if their choice was right or wrong right away. The volunteers gradually learned, on the basis of the feedback, which card combination stands for which weather prediction. The combinations were thereby linked to higher or lower probabilities for Sun and rain.

After completing the task, the study participants filled out a questionnaire to sample their acquired knowledge about the cue card combinations. The gamers were notably better in combining the cue cards with the weather predictions than the control group.

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