article_snippet.sent: Playing video games makes you better at learning than non-gamers, a study has claimed.
article_snippet.sent: Research found that gaming boosts the ability to learn a number of tasks more accurately, and possibly puts gamers in an 'expert category' of problem solving.
article_snippet.sent: But Researchers at Brown University note Researchers at Brown University are not quite sure if gaming makes people learn skills better - or if people who learn skills better are more likely to become gamers.
article_snippet.sent: Playing video games (stock image shown) may not only improve the ability to perform visual tasks, but also the learning ability for those skills, a study by Brown University in Rhode Island has claimed .
article_snippet.sent: And the results showed that gamers managed to improve performance on both tasks, while non-gamers did what was expected.
article_snippet.sent: That is, gamers improved on the second task gamers trained on, but not on the first.
article_snippet.sent: The data show that gamers on average improved gamers on average combination of speed and accuracy by about 15 per cent on gamers on average second task and about 11 per cent on gamers on average first task.
article_snippet.sent: Non-gamers produced the same average 15 per cent improvement on Non-gamers , but Non-gamers actually got a bit worse on the first task Non-gamers learned, by about 5 per cent.
article_snippet.sent: Gamers were shown to be more successful when learning both tasks than non-gamers .
article_snippet.sent: When we study perceptual learning we usually exclude people who have tons of video game playing time because people who have tons of video game seem to have different visual processing.
article_snippet.sent: people who have tons of video game are quicker and more accurate,' said Dr Sasaki.
article_snippet.sent: But people who have tons of video game may be in an expert category of visual processing.
article_snippet.sent: Maybe people who have tons of video game can learn more efficiently and quickly as a result of training.
article_snippet.sent: The exact neural mechanisms underlying visual or perceptual learning are not yet known, Dr Sasaki said, but the study suggests that gamers may have a more efficient process for hardwiring gamers visual task learning than non-gamers.
article_snippet.sent: It may be possible that the vast amount of visual training frequent gamers receive over the years could help contribute to honing consolidation mechanisms in the brain, especially for visually developed skills,’ the researchers wrote.
article_snippet.sent: After training on both backgrounds, testing showed that video gamers had done better at learning the first and second.
article_snippet.sent: But it was unresolved whether video games improve visual learning or whether good visual learners tend to play more video games .
article_snippet.sent: Importantly, the study doesn't prove whether playing video games improves learning ability or whether people with an innate ability become gamers because gamers find gaming more rewarding.
article_snippet.sent: ‘If we can demonstrate that video games may actually improve some cognitive functioning, perhaps we, as a society, can embrace newer technology and media with positive application.
highlights_snippet.sent: It has already been shown gamers learn visual tasks better .
  