how video games can improve our vision

  It is a common believe that video games makes our eye sight deteriorate. However, Daphne Maurer thinks she has proven this fixed perception wrong: she actually claims that video games, which mainly includes First Person Shooter games, may help to improve the eyesights of people who are born with cataracts .

Medal Of Honor:
One of the games suggested by Dr Maurer that could improve one's vision.








  Dr Maurer is not a gamer: however, she was a psychologist who worried about how to solve cataracts that developed from a young age. After she read about Daphne Bavelier's report about how computer games could improve people's eyesight, she came to wonder, "If computer games could improve eyesights of people with normal vision level, why can't it help people with impairments?" Thus, she began to start her studies on how computer games could help people with cataracts.

Daphne Maurer

  She gathered a group of volunteers, and several parents allowed the test to be conducted on their children as they hoped their children could get better vision. They were warned of the potential dangers, such as the violence and addiction to FPS game. Her experiment team tested the volunteers' visions first, and first supervised their gameplay as even games needed a specific learning curve. After teaching them, the team made the volunteers to play the game for several hours, around 10 hours per week. This experiment continued for a month.

  After a month, Dr Maurer gathered the results and figured out that the volunteers' visions surprisingly improved. Most notably, the volunteers could detect direction of motion easier than before. They could also see smaller details, notice their surroundings and see things that are in lower contrast. These result suggested that sensory brain could change in adults. The reason for these positive consequences can be found in the nature of FPS games. To start with, the person must have a wider view of the screen, not only what is in front of them. They have to be observant since the enemy could appear form anywhere. The brain have to react quickly to what the person is seeing and carry out the action. This increases the dopamine level in the brain. The researches have also tried the experiment using Tetris game instead of FPS games. However, since the game was not fast paced, it did not have any effect.


  Dr Maurer suggests that the scientific explanation behind this phenomenon is that the FPS games are changing balance of excitation and inhibition in the inputs to neurons in the visual cortex. The brain could be useful in breaking old connections and allow new visual connections to form. The brain also becomes more active as it reacts to even small and weak signals. Although some critics claim that the number of volunteers that are used (7 people) was too small to confirm the success of the experiment. However, Dr Maurer says that these people had suffered cataracts for long and they all improved in a month period. Hence, this shows that the experiment was indeed quite successful. 

 One of the main question that whether the video games should be violent. She hopes not and she is currently researching on how to create a game without any violence and also perform the same function. Maybe it could be the adrenaline that could have driven the peoples' eyesights to be better, but she still has a lot to figure out. 

Reflection
  This topic was an interesting topic to me, as it was an idea against our fixed perception that computer games were bad for our eyesight: instead, it went even further. This was a study that suggested that computer games could cure eyesights of people with cataracts. Our parents always tell us to stop playing computer games since it could damage our eyesight, but this theory may have proven them wrong.  

 eyes with cataracts 

  In my opinion, I think that this study is an amazing breakthrough, as it can help many people recover and improve their eyesights. If this research turns out to be successful and confirms itself as a valid scientific theory, game developers can co operate with these researchers to create more games which can function similarly and help the people with cataracts to improve their eyesights. They can also try to create a game together which is less violent, but can function the same way as the FPS games. This way, the negative side effects of the experiment, which were addiction and violence, can be solved. 

  The explanation that Dr Maurer also makes sense to me in some aspects. The player has to concentrate not only on one main focus but have to look over the entire monitor sand observe carefully even the smallest thing since there  could be enemies everywhere in a FPS game. Moreover, when the player sees the enemy, his brain has to react on what he sees and make an action corresponding it. Hence, this can improve the activity of the brain and also enhance the connection between visuality and the brain performance. The eyes can also spread its vision wider and also concentrate on small things depending on different situations. I think that this actually makes sense. In the game, we have to switch our view models several times depending where the enemies are. The researchers can utilize this fact and help the people with eyesight problems to improve on their visions.

  In conclusion, I hope that Dr Maurer continues her research and elaborate more on how the game can really influence the people's eyesights and also perform another experiment to validate her theory. Last but not least, she should try to co operate with the game companies to create a nonviolent game that helps to improve people's eyesights, and cure cataracts. 

Here is a video of a related topic, about how video can games may cure lazy eye.