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  • Gamers make accurate decisions faster than non-gamers, new study finds

    by 
    Laura June Dziuban
    Laura June Dziuban
    09.17.2010

    Many studies have shown some evidence that spending a lot of time playing video games can mean, for instance, that a person will perform worse in school -- probably because they're too busy playing The Sims to study. Recently, however, some newer studies have begun to show some more complicated evidence. A new study published in Current Biology, for instance, discusses players of standard action games, and how doing so augments their decision making abilities. What gaming does, according to the study's perspective, is help people make probabilistic inferences -- decisions based on incomplete information -- increasing the efficiency of determining odds of something happening or not. The study examined both gamers and non-gamers, and found that given the same rate of accuracy, the gamers would consistently make decisions faster than the non-gamers. The entire article can be found at the source link -- but for now, just take comfort in the knowledge that in some ways, playing video games is making you smarter.