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Carrot sticks or joysticks: video games improve vision

Nature Neuroscience volume 12, pages 527–528 (2009)Cite this article

Playing action-based video games has been shown to improve attentional processing. A study now finds that it also induces long-lasting improvements in contrast sensitivity, a basic visual function that commonly deteriorates with age. These improvements do not happen for an equivalent group who played a non-action video game.

How well we see primarily depends on the physical condition of the structures of our eyes, components such as the cornea and lens that determine the amount and focus of light that impinges on our retinas. During development and over the course of a lifetime, changes in these structures or accidental damage to them can lead to visual impairments that have been alleviated for centuries through the use of corrective lenses (such as myopia) or more recently through surgical procedures (for example, cataracts). However, even under ideal optical conditions, the quality of vision is limited by the neuronal architecture and function of the visual system instantiated in the brain1. A study in this issue of Nature Neuroscience2 demonstrates that normal-sighted people who play action-based video games can benefit from long-lasting improvements in contrast sensitivity, one of the most basic visual functions that commonly deteriorate with aging, among other causes. This improvement is probably a result of changes in neural processing, rather than physical changes in eye structure.

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Figure 1: Stimulus contrast and tests of visual function.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA

    Gideon P Caplovitz & Sabine Kastner

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  1. Gideon P Caplovitz
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  2. Sabine Kastner
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Caplovitz, G., Kastner, S. Carrot sticks or joysticks: video games improve vision. Nat Neurosci 12, 527–528 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0509-527

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