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A Bigger Brain from Video Games?

A Bigger Brain from Video Games?
9/26/2010
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Alexis Mattera

Can you play “Guitar Hero” on the expert level? Are your Koopa stomping skills kind of a big deal? That’s awesome, but it’s not going to qualify you for Mensa membership any time soon. But what about “Big Brain Academy”…does it live up to its name?

Researchers recently released their findings on whether the Wii game would help improve the mental abilities of individuals between the ages of 50 and 70. Over the course of a month, the subjects played the game for 20 hours and then were tested on whether their fluid intelligence had improved. Did it work? Not so much, the statistics show: Perceptual and cognitive abilities remained the same but the participants did get better at playing the actual game.

Guess that’ll teach us to waste our time playing video games…whoa, we DID learn something after all!

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