A comprehensive review of 133 studies indicates that playing video games can provide small but consistent improvements in mental skills, particularly working memory, across different age groups and game genres.
A large new review of research suggests video games may provide a modest but repeatable boost to cognition, with working memory appearing to benefit most. The analysis, published in Acta Psychologica, pooled 133 studies involving 14,245 participants and found that gaming was linked to small gains across a range of mental skills, including memory, spatial ability, visual attention and cognitive control.
Researchers led by Rubai Zhao of Shanghai Normal University examined three kinds of evidence: questionnaire-based comparisons of gamers and non-gamers, direct tests of those groups and training studies in which participants played for several weeks before being assessed. The strongest evidence came from the experimental studies, where the clearest improvement was seen in working memory, the system that lets people hold and manipulate information briefly, such as remembering a phone number while looking for a pen.
The findings fit with earlier meta-analyses that have reported benefits from video-game training and active games, including improvements in attention, visuospatial skills and executive function. The authors said the effect may be explained by neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt to new experiences, while in-game rewards may help reinforce memory through dopamine release. They also said the size of the benefit did not appear to depend on age, sex or game genre.
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