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Parental Controls for Game Systems: What Are My Options?

 

For many families, video games are a part of everyday life.

Many games allow players to talk and play with other people — or buy more content right from the console or game. And plenty of games are designed with a grown-up audience in mind. That’s why it’s important to find out your parental control options.

Depending on the system, parental controls might include:

Game Rating Restrictions: This setting this lets you decide which games can be played on a console or handheld gaming device based on the rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). For example, you might set the system to allow games Rated E for Everyone to be played, but not games rated Teen or above.

Disabling Internet Access: This setting can prevent your kids from accessing online features. For example, some systems include parental controls that allow you to mute or disable online chat, which might include profanity or bullying by other players. Some systems that offer online gaming also give parents the ability to approve friend requests or create approved lists of friends their kids can play with or talk to.

Time Limits: Some game systems let you set days and times your kids can play, and for how long.

Profiles: Some systems let you create multiple profiles with different settings for each. So while your password-protected profile might allow you to play any game, your nine-year-old’s profile might be limited to games rated E for Everyone. If your system doesn’t have profiles, you may have to reset the preferences each time you play.

In-game Purchase Restrictions: Sometimes you can buy downloadable games or downloadable content with the credit card tied to your account. But in most cases, you can set a password to restrict those purchases.

Think interactive video games are a waste of time or more suited for children? Think again. Research by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) indicates that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their abilities to reason and solve problems. Dr. Ray Perez, ONR program officer, discussed video game-induced “fluid intelligence” on the Jan 20 webcast.

Listen or read the transcript.

“We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players,” said Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR’s warfighter performance department in a Jan. 20 interview on Pentagon Web Radio’s audio webcast “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”

“Our concern is developing training technologies and training methods to improve performance on the battlefield,” said Perez, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology.

Perez described the war against terrorists as presenting significant challenges to warfighters on the ground because they must be able to adapt their operations to innovative and deadly adversaries who constantly change their tactics.

“We have to train people to be quick on their feet – agile problem solvers, agile thinkers – to be able to counteract and develop counter tactics to terrorists on the battlefield,” Perez said. “It’s really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the enemy.”

It’s also about adaptability. Perez said this means “being able to work outside your present mindset, to think beyond what you have been taught, to go beyond your experience to solve problems in new and different ways.”

Perez used the term “fluid intelligence” to describe the ability to change, to meet new problems and to develop new tactics and counter-tactics. Fluid intelligence, he explained, allows us to solve problems without prior knowledge or experience.

This raises the question of whether fluid intelligence is innate or can be developed and improved.

“For the last 50 years, fluid intelligence was felt to be immutable,” Perez said, “meaning it couldn’t be changed, no matter what kinds of experiences you have.”

This, he added, is related to the idea of brain plasticity. “The presumption was that the structure of the brain and the organization of the brain are pretty much set in concrete by the time you are out of your teens,” he explained.

It once was widely believed that after the age of 20, Perez said, that most humans had achieved their brain cell capacity, and that new brain cells were acquired at the expense of existing ones. But conventional beliefs about brain plasticity and aging are changing. The video game-like training programs at the Office of Naval Research, he noted, are producing surprising results.

“We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory,” he said. They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player’s field of vision compared to people who don’t play video games, he added.

While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more synchronized with other neural networks in the brain.

“We’re now looking for the underlying neural mechanisms that are responsible for these changes in behavior and in abilities,” Perez said. “We’re using various kinds of neural imaging techniques like [functional magnetic resonance imaging] that identify different areas of the brain that show activity when you’re performing certain tasks, and we can begin to look at what area of the brain is active during the processing of video information.

“We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to stimuli in the outside world,” he added.

Early indications suggest that cognitive improvements from video games can last up to two and half years, Perez said, but he admitted that so far the results have been relegated to observations and measurements in a controlled laboratory environment.

“The major question is that once you’ve increased these perceptual abilities and cognitive abilities, do they transfer to everyday tasks,” he said, “and how long do they continue to influence the person working on these everyday tasks?”

In the meantime, the researchers are looking at ways to integrate video game technology into learning tools. Perez said that they are looking at everything from small-screen training on personal digital assistants and laptops to simulators and virtual environments.

One virtual environment, used to develop adaptability within team dynamics, looks very much like a cave.

“You walk into a cave and you’re bombarded by this totally different, artificial world where there may be intelligent avatars that you interact with to perform a mission,” Perez said. “These avatars will act as teammates, so you, as an individual, will have to interact with these avatars as a unit.”

Perez said the ultimate goal is to blur the distinction between training and operations.

“I think we’re at the beginning of a new science of learning,” he said, “that will be the integration of neuroscience with developmental psychology, with cognitive science, and with artificial intelligence.”

- See more at: http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/01/26/adults-benefit-from-playing-video-games-podcast/#sthash.Y6pB9vnX.dpuf

Think interactive video games are a waste of time or more suited for children? Think again. Research by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) indicates that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their abilities to reason and solve problems. Dr. Ray Perez, ONR program officer, discussed video game-induced “fluid intelligence” on the Jan 20 webcast.

Listen or read the transcript.

“We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players,” said Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR’s warfighter performance department in a Jan. 20 interview on Pentagon Web Radio’s audio webcast “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”

“Our concern is developing training technologies and training methods to improve performance on the battlefield,” said Perez, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology.

Perez described the war against terrorists as presenting significant challenges to warfighters on the ground because they must be able to adapt their operations to innovative and deadly adversaries who constantly change their tactics.

“We have to train people to be quick on their feet – agile problem solvers, agile thinkers – to be able to counteract and develop counter tactics to terrorists on the battlefield,” Perez said. “It’s really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the enemy.”

It’s also about adaptability. Perez said this means “being able to work outside your present mindset, to think beyond what you have been taught, to go beyond your experience to solve problems in new and different ways.”

Perez used the term “fluid intelligence” to describe the ability to change, to meet new problems and to develop new tactics and counter-tactics. Fluid intelligence, he explained, allows us to solve problems without prior knowledge or experience.

This raises the question of whether fluid intelligence is innate or can be developed and improved.

“For the last 50 years, fluid intelligence was felt to be immutable,” Perez said, “meaning it couldn’t be changed, no matter what kinds of experiences you have.”

This, he added, is related to the idea of brain plasticity. “The presumption was that the structure of the brain and the organization of the brain are pretty much set in concrete by the time you are out of your teens,” he explained.

It once was widely believed that after the age of 20, Perez said, that most humans had achieved their brain cell capacity, and that new brain cells were acquired at the expense of existing ones. But conventional beliefs about brain plasticity and aging are changing. The video game-like training programs at the Office of Naval Research, he noted, are producing surprising results.

“We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory,” he said. They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player’s field of vision compared to people who don’t play video games, he added.

While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more synchronized with other neural networks in the brain.

“We’re now looking for the underlying neural mechanisms that are responsible for these changes in behavior and in abilities,” Perez said. “We’re using various kinds of neural imaging techniques like [functional magnetic resonance imaging] that identify different areas of the brain that show activity when you’re performing certain tasks, and we can begin to look at what area of the brain is active during the processing of video information.

“We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to stimuli in the outside world,” he added.

Early indications suggest that cognitive improvements from video games can last up to two and half years, Perez said, but he admitted that so far the results have been relegated to observations and measurements in a controlled laboratory environment.

“The major question is that once you’ve increased these perceptual abilities and cognitive abilities, do they transfer to everyday tasks,” he said, “and how long do they continue to influence the person working on these everyday tasks?”

In the meantime, the researchers are looking at ways to integrate video game technology into learning tools. Perez said that they are looking at everything from small-screen training on personal digital assistants and laptops to simulators and virtual environments.

One virtual environment, used to develop adaptability within team dynamics, looks very much like a cave.

“You walk into a cave and you’re bombarded by this totally different, artificial world where there may be intelligent avatars that you interact with to perform a mission,” Perez said. “These avatars will act as teammates, so you, as an individual, will have to interact with these avatars as a unit.”

Perez said the ultimate goal is to blur the distinction between training and operations.

“I think we’re at the beginning of a new science of learning,” he said, “that will be the integration of neuroscience with developmental psychology, with cognitive science, and with artificial intelligence.”

- See more at: http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/01/26/adults-benefit-from-playing-video-games-podcast/#sthash.Y6pB9vnX.dpuf

Think interactive video games are a waste of time or more suited for children? Think again. Research by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) indicates that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their abilities to reason and solve problems. Dr. Ray Perez, ONR program officer, discussed video game-induced “fluid intelligence” on the Jan 20 webcast.

Listen or read the transcript.

“We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players,” said Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR’s warfighter performance department in a Jan. 20 interview on Pentagon Web Radio’s audio webcast “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”

“Our concern is developing training technologies and training methods to improve performance on the battlefield,” said Perez, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology.

Perez described the war against terrorists as presenting significant challenges to warfighters on the ground because they must be able to adapt their operations to innovative and deadly adversaries who constantly change their tactics.

“We have to train people to be quick on their feet – agile problem solvers, agile thinkers – to be able to counteract and develop counter tactics to terrorists on the battlefield,” Perez said. “It’s really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the enemy.”

It’s also about adaptability. Perez said this means “being able to work outside your present mindset, to think beyond what you have been taught, to go beyond your experience to solve problems in new and different ways.”

Perez used the term “fluid intelligence” to describe the ability to change, to meet new problems and to develop new tactics and counter-tactics. Fluid intelligence, he explained, allows us to solve problems without prior knowledge or experience.

This raises the question of whether fluid intelligence is innate or can be developed and improved.

“For the last 50 years, fluid intelligence was felt to be immutable,” Perez said, “meaning it couldn’t be changed, no matter what kinds of experiences you have.”

This, he added, is related to the idea of brain plasticity. “The presumption was that the structure of the brain and the organization of the brain are pretty much set in concrete by the time you are out of your teens,” he explained.

It once was widely believed that after the age of 20, Perez said, that most humans had achieved their brain cell capacity, and that new brain cells were acquired at the expense of existing ones. But conventional beliefs about brain plasticity and aging are changing. The video game-like training programs at the Office of Naval Research, he noted, are producing surprising results.

“We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory,” he said. They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player’s field of vision compared to people who don’t play video games, he added.

While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more synchronized with other neural networks in the brain.

“We’re now looking for the underlying neural mechanisms that are responsible for these changes in behavior and in abilities,” Perez said. “We’re using various kinds of neural imaging techniques like [functional magnetic resonance imaging] that identify different areas of the brain that show activity when you’re performing certain tasks, and we can begin to look at what area of the brain is active during the processing of video information.

“We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to stimuli in the outside world,” he added.

Early indications suggest that cognitive improvements from video games can last up to two and half years, Perez said, but he admitted that so far the results have been relegated to observations and measurements in a controlled laboratory environment.

“The major question is that once you’ve increased these perceptual abilities and cognitive abilities, do they transfer to everyday tasks,” he said, “and how long do they continue to influence the person working on these everyday tasks?”

In the meantime, the researchers are looking at ways to integrate video game technology into learning tools. Perez said that they are looking at everything from small-screen training on personal digital assistants and laptops to simulators and virtual environments.

One virtual environment, used to develop adaptability within team dynamics, looks very much like a cave.

“You walk into a cave and you’re bombarded by this totally different, artificial world where there may be intelligent avatars that you interact with to perform a mission,” Perez said. “These avatars will act as teammates, so you, as an individual, will have to interact with these avatars as a unit.”

Perez said the ultimate goal is to blur the distinction between training and operations.

“I think we’re at the beginning of a new science of learning,” he said, “that will be the integration of neuroscience with developmental psychology, with cognitive science, and with artificial intelligence.”

- See more at: http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/01/26/adults-benefit-from-playing-video-games-podcast/#sthash.Y6pB9vnX.dpuf

Think interactive video games are a waste of time or more suited for children? Think again. Research by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) indicates that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their abilities to reason and solve problems. Dr. Ray Perez, ONR program officer, discussed video game-induced “fluid intelligence” on the Jan 20 webcast.

Listen or read the transcript.

“We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players,” said Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR’s warfighter performance department in a Jan. 20 interview on Pentagon Web Radio’s audio webcast “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”

“Our concern is developing training technologies and training methods to improve performance on the battlefield,” said Perez, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology.

Perez described the war against terrorists as presenting significant challenges to warfighters on the ground because they must be able to adapt their operations to innovative and deadly adversaries who constantly change their tactics.

“We have to train people to be quick on their feet – agile problem solvers, agile thinkers – to be able to counteract and develop counter tactics to terrorists on the battlefield,” Perez said. “It’s really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the enemy.”

It’s also about adaptability. Perez said this means “being able to work outside your present mindset, to think beyond what you have been taught, to go beyond your experience to solve problems in new and different ways.”

Perez used the term “fluid intelligence” to describe the ability to change, to meet new problems and to develop new tactics and counter-tactics. Fluid intelligence, he explained, allows us to solve problems without prior knowledge or experience.

This raises the question of whether fluid intelligence is innate or can be developed and improved.

“For the last 50 years, fluid intelligence was felt to be immutable,” Perez said, “meaning it couldn’t be changed, no matter what kinds of experiences you have.”

This, he added, is related to the idea of brain plasticity. “The presumption was that the structure of the brain and the organization of the brain are pretty much set in concrete by the time you are out of your teens,” he explained.

It once was widely believed that after the age of 20, Perez said, that most humans had achieved their brain cell capacity, and that new brain cells were acquired at the expense of existing ones. But conventional beliefs about brain plasticity and aging are changing. The video game-like training programs at the Office of Naval Research, he noted, are producing surprising results.

“We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory,” he said. They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player’s field of vision compared to people who don’t play video games, he added.

While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more synchronized with other neural networks in the brain.

“We’re now looking for the underlying neural mechanisms that are responsible for these changes in behavior and in abilities,” Perez said. “We’re using various kinds of neural imaging techniques like [functional magnetic resonance imaging] that identify different areas of the brain that show activity when you’re performing certain tasks, and we can begin to look at what area of the brain is active during the processing of video information.

“We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to stimuli in the outside world,” he added.

Early indications suggest that cognitive improvements from video games can last up to two and half years, Perez said, but he admitted that so far the results have been relegated to observations and measurements in a controlled laboratory environment.

“The major question is that once you’ve increased these perceptual abilities and cognitive abilities, do they transfer to everyday tasks,” he said, “and how long do they continue to influence the person working on these everyday tasks?”

In the meantime, the researchers are looking at ways to integrate video game technology into learning tools. Perez said that they are looking at everything from small-screen training on personal digital assistants and laptops to simulators and virtual environments.

One virtual environment, used to develop adaptability within team dynamics, looks very much like a cave.

“You walk into a cave and you’re bombarded by this totally different, artificial world where there may be intelligent avatars that you interact with to perform a mission,” Perez said. “These avatars will act as teammates, so you, as an individual, will have to interact with these avatars as a unit.”

Perez said the ultimate goal is to blur the distinction between training and operations.

“I think we’re at the beginning of a new science of learning,” he said, “that will be the integration of neuroscience with developmental psychology, with cognitive science, and with artificial intelligence.”

- See more at: http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/01/26/adults-benefit-from-playing-video-games-podcast/#sthash.Y6pB9vnX.dpuf

The Longitudinal Relationships between Strategic Video Games, Self-Reported Problem Solving Skills, and Academic Grades

Some researchers have proposed that video games possess good learning principles and may promote problem solving skills. Empirical research regarding this relationship, however, is limited. The goal of the presented study was to examine whether strategic video game play (i.e., role playing and strategy games) predicted self-reported problem solving skills among a sample of 1,492 adolescents (50.8% female), over the four high school years. The results showed that more strategic video game play predicted higher self-reported problem solving skills over time than less strategic video game play. In addition, the results showed support for an indirect association between strategic video game play and academic grades, in that strategic video game play predicted higher self-reported problem solving skills, and, in turn, higher self-reported problem solving skills predicted higher academic grades. The novel findings that strategic video games promote self-reported problem solving skills and indirectly predict academic grades are important considering that millions of adolescents play video games every day

The Longitudinal Link between Competitive Video Games, Competitive Gambling, and Aggression

 

The majority of research on the link between video games and aggression has focused on the violent content in games. In contrast, recent experimental research suggests that it is video game competition, not violence, that has the greatest effect on aggression in the short-term. However, no researchers have examined the long-term relationship between video game competition and aggression. In addition, if competition in video games is a significant reason for the link between video game play and aggression, then other competitive activities, such as competitive gambling, also may predict aggression over time. In the current study, we directly assessed the socialization (competitive video game play and competitive gambling predicts aggression over time) versus selection hypotheses (aggression predicts competitive video game play and competitive gambling over time). Adolescents (N = 1,492, 50.8% female) were surveyed annually from Grade 9 to Grade 12 about their video game play, gambling, and aggressive behaviors. Greater competitive video game play and competitive gambling predicted higher levels of aggression over time, after controlling for previous levels of aggression, supporting the socialization hypothesis. The selection hypothesis also was supported, as aggression predicted greater competitive video game play and competitive gambling over time, after controlling for previous competitive video game play and competitive gambling. Our findings, taken together with the fact that millions of adolescents play competitive video games every day and that competitive gambling may increase as adolescents transition into adulthood, highlight the need for a greater understanding of the relationship between competition and aggression.

Video games and health

Although playing video games is one of the most popular leisure activities in the world, research into its effects on players, both positive and negative, is often trivialised. Some of this research deserves to be taken seriously, not least because video game playing has implications for health.

One innovative application of video games in health care is their use in pain management. The degree of attention needed to play such a game can distract the player from the sensation of pain, a strategy that has been reported and evaluated among paediatric patients. One case study reported the use of a handheld video game to stop an 8 year old boy picking at his face. The child had neurodermatitis and scarring due to continual picking at his upper lip. Previous treatments had failed so the boy was given a hand held video game to keep his hands occupied. After two weeks the affected area had healed. Controlled studies using both randomised controlled trials and comparison with patient’s own baseline measures show that video games can provide cognitive distraction for children during chemotherapy for cancer and treatment for sickle cell disease.

All these studies reported that distracted patients had less nausea and lower systolic blood pressure than controls (who were simply asked to rest) after treatment and needed fewer analgesics.

Video games have been used as a form of physiotherapy or occupational therapy in many different groups of people. Such games focus attention away from potential discomfort and, unlike more traditional therapeutic activities, they do not rely on passive movements and sometimes painful manipulation of the limbs. Video games have been used as a form of physiotherapy for arm injuries, in training the movements of a 13 year old child with Erb’s palsy, and as a form of occupational therapy to increase hand strength. Therapeutic benefits have also been reported for a variety of adult populations including wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries,people with severe burns,and people with muscular dystrophy. Video games have also been used in comprehensive programmes to help develop social and spatial ability skills in children and adolescents with severe learning disability or other developmental problems, including autism, children with multiple handicaps (for example severely limited acquisition of speech), and children with impulsive and attention deficit disorders.

However, there has been no long term follow-up and no robust randomised controlled trials of such interventions. Whether patients eventually tire of such games is also unclear. Furthermore, it is not known whether any distracting effect depends simply on concentrating on an interactive task or whether the content of games is also an important factor as there have been no controlled trials comparing video games with other distractors. Further research should examine factors within games such as novelty, users’ preferences, and relative levels of challenge and should compare video games with other potentially distracting activities.

While playing video games has some benefits in certain clinical settings, a growing body of evidence highlighting the more negative aspects of play—particularly on children and adolescents. These include the risk of video game addiction,(although the prevalence of true addiction, rather than excessive use, is very low and increased aggressiveness.There have been numerous case reports of other adverse medical and psychosocial effects. For instance, the risk of epileptic seizures while playing video games in photosensitive individuals with epilepsy is well established.

Graf et al report that seizures are most likely to occur during rapid scene changes and when games include patterns of highly intense repetition and flickering.

Seizures and excessive or addictive play do not seem to be linked directly, however, as occasional players seem to be just as susceptible.

Other case studies have reported adverse effects of playing video games, including auditory hallucinations, enuresis, encopresis, wrist pain, neck pain, elbow pain, tenosynovitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, repetitive strain injuries, peripheral neuropathy, and obesity. Some of these adverse effects seem to be rare and many resolve when the patients no longer play the games. Furthermore, case reports and case series cannot provide firm evidence of cause and effect or rule out other confounding factors.

On balance, given that video game playing is highly prevalent among children and adolescents in industrialised countries, there is little evidence that moderate frequency of play has serious acute adverse effects from moderate play. Adverse effects, when they occur, tend to be relatively minor and temporary, resolving spontaneously with decreased frequency of play. More evidence is needed on excessive play and on defining what constitutes excess in the first place. There should also be long term studies of the course of video game addiction.

Researchers Examine Video Gaming’s Benefits

 

Think interactive video games are a waste of time or more suited for children? Think again. Research under way by the Office of Naval Research indicates that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their fundamental abilities to reason and solve problems in novel contexts.

“We have discovered that video game players perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players,” said Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR’s warfighter performance department in a Jan. 20 interview on Pentagon Web Radio’s audio webcast “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”

“Our concern is developing training technologies and training methods to improve performance on the battlefield,” said Perez, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology.

Perez described the war against terrorists as presenting significant challenges to warfighters on the ground because they must be able to adapt their operations to innovative and deadly adversaries who constantly change their tactics.

“We have to train people to be quick on their feet - agile problem solvers, agile thinkers - to be able to counteract and develop counter tactics to terrorists on the battlefield,” Perez said. “It’s really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the enemy.”

It’s also about adaptability. Perez said this means “being able to work outside your present mindset, to think beyond what you have been taught, to go beyond your experience to solve problems in new and different ways.”

Perez used the term “fluid intelligence” to describe the ability to change, to meet new problems and to develop new tactics and counter-tactics. Fluid intelligence, he explained, allows us to solve problems without prior knowledge or experience.

This raises the question of whether fluid intelligence is innate or can be developed and improved.

“For the last 50 years, fluid intelligence was felt to be immutable,” Perez said, “meaning it couldn’t be changed, no matter what kinds of experiences you have.”

This, he added, is related to the idea of brain plasticity. “The presumption was that the structure of the brain and the organization of the brain are pretty much set in concrete by the time you are out of your teens,” he explained.

It once was widely believed that after the age of 20, Perez said, that most humans had achieved their brain cell capacity, and that new brain cells were acquired at the expense of existing ones. But conventional beliefs about brain plasticity and aging are changing. The video game-like training programs at the Office of Naval Research, he noted, are producing surprising results.

“We know that video games can increase perceptual abilities and short-term memory,” he said. They allow the player to focus longer and expand the player’s field of vision compared to people who don’t play video games, he added.

While there is empirical evidence of increased brain plasticity in video gamers, Perez said, the process behind it is not well understood. His belief, he said, is that the neural networks involved in video gaming become more pronounced, have increased blood flow, and become more synchronized with other neural networks in the brain.

“We’re now looking for the underlying neural mechanisms that are responsible for these changes in behavior and in abilities,” Perez said. “We’re using various kinds of neural imaging techniques like [functional magnetic resonance imaging] that identify different areas of the brain that show activity when you’re performing certain tasks, and we can begin to look at what area of the brain is active during the processing of video information.

“We think that these games increase your executive control, or your ability to focus and attend to stimuli in the outside world,” he added.

Early indications suggest that cognitive improvements from video games can last up to two and half years, Perez said, but he admitted that so far the results have been relegated to observations and measurements in a controlled laboratory environment.

“The major question is that once you’ve increased these perceptual abilities and cognitive abilities, do they transfer to everyday tasks,” he said, “and how long do they continue to influence the person working on these everyday tasks?”

In the meantime, the researchers are looking at ways to integrate video game technology into learning tools. Perez said that they are looking at everything from small-screen training on personal digital assistants and laptops to simulators and virtual environments.

One virtual environment, used to develop adaptability within team dynamics, looks very much like a cave.

“You walk into a cave and you’re bombarded by this totally different, artificial world where there may be intelligent avatars that you interact with to perform a mission,” Perez said. “These avatars will act as teammates, so you, as an individual, will have to interact with these avatars as a unit.”

Perez said the ultimate goal is to blur the distinction between training and operations.

“I think we’re at the beginning of a new science of learning,” he said, “that will be the integration of neuroscience with developmental psychology, with cognitive science, and with artificial intelligence.”

The Office of Naval Research is sponsoring research in new game theory and solvable games. Those interested in more information on funding opportunities can visit the Human-Machine Adversarial Network topic (#16) in the office’s 2010 Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative.