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Added proper reference.
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Steven Jeuris ♦
Steven Jeuris ♦
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Just like brain training research - see athis great recent study by hereOwen et al. 2010 - there is little good evidence to show any causal long term and generalisable effects of playing video games.

However, to answer the original question: I found that video game players had higher speed and reasoning ability in a small sample paper based on my PhD research developing computer-game-like ability tests. (McPherson, J., & Burns, N. R. 2008)

People who like playing games might be good at things required for playing games. Just like people who are really like and are good at certain sports might often have the right skills and body type to be good at it.

The research showing training effects often involves short term improvements and tasks very similar to the training tasks - this is important. Short term non-generalisable improvements are not the same as psychological traits.

Owen, A. M., Hampshire, A., Grahn, J. A., Stenton, R., Dajani, S., Burns, A. S., ... & Ballard, C. G. (2010). [Putting brain training to the test.][1] Nature, 465(7299), 775-778. McPherson, J., & Burns, N. R. (2008). [Assessing the validity of computer-game-like tests of processing speed and working memory.][2] Behavior research methods, 40(4), 969-981.

Just like brain training research - see a great recent study here - there is little good evidence to show any causal long term and generalisable effects of playing video games.

However, to answer the original question: I found that video game players had higher speed and reasoning ability in a small sample paper based on my PhD research developing computer-game-like ability tests.

People who like playing games might be good at things required for playing games. Just like people who are really like and are good at certain sports might often have the right skills and body type to be good at it.

The research showing training effects often involves short term improvements and tasks very similar to the training tasks - this is important. Short term non-generalisable improvements are not the same as psychological traits.

Just like brain training research - see this great recent study by Owen et al. 2010 - there is little good evidence to show any causal long term and generalisable effects of playing video games.

However, to answer the original question: I found that video game players had higher speed and reasoning ability in a small sample paper based on my PhD research developing computer-game-like ability tests. (McPherson, J., & Burns, N. R. 2008)

People who like playing games might be good at things required for playing games. Just like people who really like and are good at certain sports might often have the right skills and body type to be good at it.

The research showing training effects often involves short term improvements and tasks very similar to the training tasks - this is important. Short term non-generalisable improvements are not the same as psychological traits.

Owen, A. M., Hampshire, A., Grahn, J. A., Stenton, R., Dajani, S., Burns, A. S., ... & Ballard, C. G. (2010). [Putting brain training to the test.][1] Nature, 465(7299), 775-778. McPherson, J., & Burns, N. R. (2008). [Assessing the validity of computer-game-like tests of processing speed and working memory.][2] Behavior research methods, 40(4), 969-981.
Post Merged (destination) from cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/48/…
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Jason McPherson
Jason McPherson
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Just like brain training research - see a great recent study here - there is little good evidence to show any causal long term and generalisable effects of playing video games.

However, to answer the original question: I found that video game players had higher speed and reasoning ability in a small sample paper based on my PhD research developing computer-game-like ability tests.

People who like playing games might be good at things required for playing games. Just like people who are really like and are good at certain sports might often have the right skills and body type to be good at it.

The research showing training effects often involves short term improvements and tasks very similar to the training tasks - this is important. Short term non-generalisable improvements are not the same as psychological traits.