There has always been the suggestion that playing video games quickens and hones the reflexes of gamers. A recent study done by the University of Rochester–while not proving this true–did confirm that playing video games increases the visual acuity of those who play. The game used in the study was Unreal Tournament, and research shows that test subjects who played the game for a month increased their sense of vision by 20 percent.
Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, said, "After just 30 hours, players showed a substantial increase in the spatial resolution of their vision, meaning they could see figures like those on an eye chart more clearly, even when other symbols crowded in."
The test subject pool came from campus college students who played very few or no video games in the past year. Shawn Green, a graduate student who assisted Bavelier in the study, said this was no easy feat because "nearly everybody on a campus plays video games."
The significance of the research involves the ability to enhance a person’s visual perceptiveness. This may be an indication that individuals who have vision defects may be "trained" to increase his or her baseline vision acuity through rehabilitation computer software.
