BackSome video games can improve vision
First-person shooter games combine vision and motor skills and can help correct visual defects
Premium(Ian Willms/The New York Times.)
OTHERS :
Developmental psychologist Daphne Maurer made headlines this year with research suggesting that people born with cataracts could improve their eyesight by playing Medal of Honor, the “first-person shooter" video game. But her fame goes far beyond the video screen.
Maurer, 56, director of the visual development lab at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, is an author, with her husband, Charles, of the pioneering 1988 book The World of the Newborn, an inventory of what babies sense and experience. In recent years she has been directing a study tracking infants born with visual impairments into later life. This longitudinal study is her attempt to learn how early sensory deprivation affects vision over a lifetime. Edited excerpts from two interviews:
What led to your working with first-person shooter games?
For the longest time, the zeitgeist was that the visual system, which includes the brain, was hard-wired in childhood and couldn’t be changed later. We wondered if that was true. Over the years, you would see hints in the literature that there was still plasticity in the adult brain. You’d sometimes read of adults recovering from childhood strokes, or from lazy eye.
Then, Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester began publishing studies showing that computer games improved the vision of people with normal eyesight. I couldn’t help but wonder: If they helped the normally sighted, why not people with impairments? Also, I saw studies where enriched environments for rats improved aspects of vision damaged after early deprivation. Well, what’s an enriched visual environment for a human? It might be a computer game. I thought, “Click, why not give it a try?"
How exactly does one organize a study like this?
We started by sending a letter to our patients, asking for volunteers. We explained why we thought it might work. Of course, we warned of potential risks: The game was violent—they would have to wield a symbolic gun and blow away their “enemies" on a screen. It could increase aggression. The game could be addictive. Seven of our adult patients decided that the hope of better vision was worth the risk.
There was quite a bit of time involved. We tested their vision for 5 hours. Because there’s a learning curve to gaming, we supervised their play for another 10 hours. Then they went home with a loaded console and played for 10 hours a week, though never more than 2 hours at a time.
At the end of a month, we tested their vision again. They all showed some improvement on a number of tasks. Some were seeing better with their better eye or with their worse eye—or with both. Most improved in their ability to see direction of motion. They could see smaller details. They were able to see things that are in lower contrast. We were elated. This was a sign that the sensory brain can change in adults.
Why do you think this type of game was therapeutic?
Well, if you stepped back and asked what might be an effective therapy for visual defects, first-person shooter games have a lot of what’s needed. They require a person to monitor the whole field of vision, not just what is ahead of them. The player has to monitor everything, because the enemy could come from anywhere. The game is fast-paced. You can’t sit back because you will get shot dead. We know that the game changes neurochemicals. It causes an adrenalin rush. It also causes dopamine levels to rise in the brain. That potentially may make the brain more plastic.
The game we used has got what’s called vision for action. You have to look at the screen, make a decision and push the joystick in the right direction. So you are not only sensing the world, you are acting on it. We know that combining vision and the motor system is most likely to be effective. Now, not all games do this. Other researchers have tried a game called Tetris with people with normal vision. It’s not from the first-person perspective, and it is not fast-paced. They found it had no effect.
©2012/The New York Times
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