Wednesday, April 1st 2009
Gaming Good For Eyesight
A study has found that gamers' contrast sensitivity vision improves when playing FPS games. Contrast sensitivity is the body's response to a change in visionary situations, enabling you for example, to see in the dark or read. Like everything else it degrades in old age, but a new neuroscience study has shown that this may not be the case for avid gamers who enjoy a good gunfight.
According to leading researcher, Professor Daphne Bavelier of Rochester University "This is not a skill that people were supposed to get better at by training. It was something that we corrected for at the level of the optics of the eye - to get better contrast detection you get glasses or laser surgery."
So, after hooking a group of gamers for more than 50 hours on Call of Duty, and another group on an non-violent game, results showed that the vision of those who played Call of Duty had improved by 43 percent. When set against the results of the other group, whose vision failed to improve at all, such a result can no doubt be deemed as statistically significant.
According to leading researcher, Professor Daphne Bavelier of Rochester University "This is not a skill that people were supposed to get better at by training. It was something that we corrected for at the level of the optics of the eye - to get better contrast detection you get glasses or laser surgery."
So, after hooking a group of gamers for more than 50 hours on Call of Duty, and another group on an non-violent game, results showed that the vision of those who played Call of Duty had improved by 43 percent. When set against the results of the other group, whose vision failed to improve at all, such a result can no doubt be deemed as statistically significant.
46 Comments on Gaming Good For Eyesight
An example would be an utter FPS noob playing crysis. they see movement, and they shoot at it. A frog, a branch swaying - to them its all a blur. Add in a bit of adrenaline and they have no idea whats going on anymore.
Get someone used to FPS gaming, and they see and identify every last moving thing on screen at once, in under a second.
The reason for a need for glasses as you age is because the lens in your eye is controlled by tiny muscles, like all other msucles in your body as you age, they are not as effecient as they used to be, and your eye cannot bring things into focus as easily. The muscle is also slower, hence why your reaction times reduce as you get older.
When looking at a screen, your eye is constantly re-focusing on the flashing image, but because your head is not moving, the brain does not see a need to blink as frequently, therefore, you get tired eyes, from it having to consistently keeps itself focused, and from your eyes drying out slightly due to the lack of blinking.
I spoke to my optician about this before I got contact lenses as I was worried about looking at a screen a lot as that is what my career path entails. He assured me computer screens do nothing towards damaging your eye, all it can do is make them tired.
Back to this though, I can quite easily see why games would improve reaction times, as poeple have said, the human body has the ability to adapt, practice makes perfect after all, how is your body to know the difference between reacting fast for a computer game or reacting fast out in the "real" world. Its the same surely?
Sorry for the wall of text :p
having low light levels or not having contrast and brightness set correctly can strain eyes but you get the idea about eyes having to scope the level and quickly see everything
its all about your eyes getting better for reactions, basically what mussles said
i cant say that ive improved in vision tho i can see things long distance but im not one of those who can turn fast or run around fast and take everything in, like my mate who was watching me play oblivion he went you missed a coin or something and i was like wtf how did you see that shit!
he can spot things fast where as ill be able to see the big picture and know what to do while he is running around like a headless chicken spotting all these items
it should focus on the back of the retina but some people dont so they need a lens to change the light so it makes a focus on the back
That was good, lol. They might do one day. Robot is just an animated computer after all!
after that I hit the FPs again big style & got back some skills but im not even close to being as badass as i was them years back.....
another thing is - I was able to pick out targets my gunner missed & call them out while flying a attack chopper in BF2. I dunno wheather it was because he had a less powerful gpu but he sometimes couldnt see a soldier lying prone ontop of a building or climbing up a ladder :confused: guess his card wasnt so good at the different texturing paterns for the uniforms & buildings
Games obviously do nothing for the lense (need eye surgery or corrective lenses for that). What gaming can do is improve image processing performance of the brain granting quicker reaction times and a great ability to detect changes/motion from a visual aspect.
I'd bet that less than 12 hours after ending a gaming session, your sensitivity and reflexes have probably returned back to normal.
Granted, though, prolonged "training" like this over many months would probably show a gradual increase in sensitivity.