by Playfuls Staff |
21st February 2007
Now that should make Jack Thompson shut up forever: a recent study shows that laparoscopic surgeons who have played video games perform better, even considering individual experience or the length of training.[more]
The February issue of Archives of Surgery hosts an article about the strong correlations between the performance in laparoscopic surgery and video games. The study was conducted at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and consisted in a cross-sectional analysis of the performance of surgical residents and attending physicians participating in the Rosser Top Gun Laparoscopic Skills and Suturing Program (Top Gun). Three different video game exercises were performed, and surveys were completed to assess past experience with video games and current level of play, and each subject's level of surgical training, number of laparoscopic cases performed, and number of years in medical practice.
There were 33 residents and attending physicians who participated at the test between May 10 and August 24, 2002.
The study says that past video game play in excess of 3 h/week correlated with 37% fewer errors and 27% faster completion. Overall Top Gun score (time and errors) was 33% better for video game players and 42% better if they played more than 3 h/week. Current video game players made 32% fewer errors, performed 24% faster, and scored 26% better overall (time and errors) than their non-playing colleagues. When comparing demonstrated video gaming skills, those in the top tertile made 47% fewer errors, performed 39% faster, and scored 41% better on the overall Top Gun score.
Regression analysis also indicated that video game skill and past video game experience are significant predictors of demonstrated laparoscopic skills.
The conclusion was that video games may be a practical teaching tool to help train surgeons.
"It was surprising that past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills," said Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile, one of the study's authors.
It supports previous research that video games can improve "fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, visual attention, depth perception and computer competency," the study said.
In another recent study, the University of Rochester, a private institution established 150 years ago, came up with the conclusion that playing an hour or so daily your favorite First Person Shooter is actually good for your eyes.
They asked the test subjects in their research to play for a few hours a day some FPS games and at the end of the test the researchers noticed the subjects improved their vision with about 20%.
Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences said that "action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information."
"These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it. That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life."The study was interesting because it was later proven that only hard-core FPS games like Halo 2, Doom 3 or Unreal Tournament were actually the ones that improved the players’ sight.
But there is some criticism for the Beth Israel Medical Center’s study: Myriam J. Curet declared in the same issue of Archives of Surgery that
“We still have to watch our children's video gaming carefully—the number of hours, the types of games, and so on. And will it really improve laparoscopic skills? There are several problems with this article. First, the small sample size leaves significant potential for bias. Second, the authors suggest that we should include video game play for laparoscopic skill training, but their data suggest that past playing is what improves laparoscopic skills.”
