Playing 3D games like <i>Super Mario 3D World</i> boosted people's memories by 12 per cent over two weeks.
Scientists just can't agree on whether video games will save you or kill you: some say they make you distracted or aggressive, others that they help hand-eye co-ordination and brain power.
New research published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows another win for video games - playing 3D games like
Super Mario 3D World boosted people's memories by 12 per cent over two weeks. That's the same amount it reportedly decreases between the ages of 45 and 70.
As part of the study, neuroscientists at the University of California, Irvine recruited university students with no gaming experience to play either Angry Birds (a 2D game on their mobiles) or Super Mario 3D World, which has an "intricate, 3D setting". The students played for 30 minutes per day over two weeks.
"The 3D games have a few things the 2D ones do not," said Craig Stark, one of the authors of the study. "They've got a lot more spatial information in there to explore. Second, they're much more complex, with a lot more information to learn."
Before this two-week period, the students took a memory test involving a series of images of everyday objects that had to be categorised. After the video-game play, the test was given again but with slightly altered images. Recognising that images have been altered is something we get worse at as we get older.
