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Brain Size Can Predict Your Gaming Performance
Have you ever sucked at a game? And whatever you did, or do, you continued to suck? (Yeah, me too.) But, there’s a theory behind the madness. In a study published in The Journal of the Cerebral Cortex, it revealed that the size of your brain can actually have an affect on your gaming skills.
Scientists at the University of Illinois have studied specific parts of the Striatum, a collection of tissues deep inside your cerebral cortex, and it revealed that brain size can influence a gamers ability to “refine his or her motor skills, learn new procedures, develop useful strategies and adapt to a quickly changing environments,” or in other words, playing games.
“This is the first time that we’ve been able to take a real world task like a video game and show that the size of specific brain regions is predictive of performance and learning rates on this video game,” said Kirk Erickson, professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and the author on the study.
“Playing a game which requires very fast deployment of visual attention and motor movement could prime a strategy of speed over accuracy,” explained Nelson, “while playing a game which emphasizes a slower, more thoughtful pace could prime the opposite pattern. The main point is that different kinds of video games engage different cognitive and perceptual skills, and there are measurable differences in their effects, even in the short term.”
However, it does not work in reverse; you can’t play a bunch of video games and grow those structures in your brain — you’re stuck with the equipment you’re given from birth.
Tags: Action, Add new tag, Brain, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition, Crackdown, Game, Gamer, Games, Health, History, Neuron, Professor, Psychology, Space Combat, Star Trek Games, Starfleet Command Series, University of Illinois, University of Illinois system, University of Pittsburgh, Video game, XboxMore News
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