The Mental Benefits of Casual Games

Another study about games will be explored, dissected and revealed at Games for Health this week in Boston, and it involves casual games. Preliminary results of a new study conducted by East Carolina University's Psychophysiology Lab have found that playing casual games showed improvements in cognitive function for older players. The study, which has been underway for over six months, is focusing on games like Bejeweled and Peggle.

Using 40 consumers age 50 and older, the study explores the effects of games on subjects' short-term cognitive acuity. Early data suggest that sizable improvements were identified in the performance of the test group, compared to a control group.

The results were measured through tracking Electroencephalography (EEG) brain waves as well as participation in a standardized Trail Making Test parts A and B. A Trail-making test is a neuropsychological test of visual attention and task switching that requires a subject to connect dots of consecutive targets on a sheet of paper or computer screen. The "A" test uses numbers as targets while the "B" test alternates between numbers and letters. The goal is to finish the test as quickly as possible, with the time taken to complete the tests used as the primary performance metric.

"The initial results of the study are very intriguing, in that they suggest that the 'active participation' required while playing a casual video game like Bejeweled provides an opportunity for mental exercise that more passive activities, like watching television, do not," said Dr. Carmen Russoniello, Director of the Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic at ECU. "Future applications could include prescriptive applications using casual video games to potentially stave off Alzheimer's disease and other dementia-type disorders."

Subjects who played Bejeweled or Peggle for 30 minutes showed an 87 percent improvement in cognitive response time and a 215 percent increase in executive functioning when compared to a control group. According to ECU, these improvements in overall cognitive acuity are comparable to changes recorded after other types of cognitive activities such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and cognitive remediation therapy.

Russoniello says that more hardcore games offer the same possibility of positive cognitive benefits, but noted that these kinds of games take longer to learn and appeal to a narrower demographic. Older consumers have an easier time with casual games that are easy to learn.