May 26……… The preliminary report of a new study being performed at the East Carolina University’s Psychophysiology Lab was announced today by PopCap Games. PopCap Games is a world leader in the casual video games industry that makes such games as Bejeweled® and Peggle™. The study which has been ongoing for nearly six months involved dozens of U.S. consumers 50 and older.
It explores the effects of the participants’ short-term cognitive acuity and the results have shown a considerable improvement in the performance of the experimental group compared with the control group. The Director of Psychophysiology Lab, Dr. Carmen Russoniello, is presenting the initial analysis and data from the study at Boston’s 6th annual Games for Health Conference. The full study results will be submitted to the peer-reviewed journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback this fall.
Dr. Russoniello said that the preliminary results are intriguing and suggest that the “active participation” required when playing a casual video game like Bejeweled® provides the opportunity for mental exercise than such passive activities such as watching television. She also stated “Future applications could include prescriptive applications using casual video games to potentially stave of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia-type disorders.”
The results were found by measuring the EEG brain waves of the participants as well as the taking of the Trail Making Test™ parts A and B. The participants that played Bejeweled and Peggle for 30 minute intervals showed 87% improvement in their cognitive response time ( the speed it takes for you to complete a task) and a 215% increase in the executive functioning (the frequency of completing the task).
So you’re asking yourself what is casual video gaming versus hard core video gaming. Casual video games are less detailed, involve less complex rules and controls, and appeal to everyone. Hard core video games may have similar cognitive benefits but take longer to learn and usually appeal to a narrower overall population.
(PopCap Games did not underwrite any part of this study)