Adults can improve their eyesight by playing action video games. A new study has found the fact after years of research on this field. Action games such as “Call of Duty 2″ or “Medal of Honor” can be played to improve eye-sight.
What Did The Study Suggest?
The study published in the journal of Nature Neuroscience ,funded by the “Office of Naval Research” and by the “National Eye Institute”, speaks about the improvement in the ability to notice slight differences in shades of colors, contrast sensitivity, color recognition etc. the video game training program (as they call it ) helped people with such improvement in their eyes. Also the people with “ambiyopia” (aka lazy eye) who suffer from trouble seeing while driving at night are also benefited by this treatment.
Normal Procedure Vs. Video Game Treatment
Improving contrast meant getting the correct glassed or getting an eye surgery to correct the vision — all focused to somehow change the optics of the affected eye to improve the vision. But, using this treatment the brain improves the reception and visual interpretation from the same source of light thus, the eyesight does not change at all. The image is processed in the brain in more effective and efficient way making the person see better.
The brain is pushed to the limit and it starts working better and it adapts the light signal processing and the sight gets improved. There are no side effects and also the improvements last long even if the game is stopped.
How was The Research Carried Out?
Two groups of people were allowed to play games of two kinds. One group was playing action games where as the other group played non action games. The action games were well chosen ones which required precise, visually guided aiming actions. The people who played the action game showed 10 to 60 percent improvement in their contrast sensitivity and other aspects of vision while the other group has no significant improvements.
This treatment could compliment the other methods of eye correction like sunglasses, contact lenses and could last for a longer time. It’s also cited here that not all the action games have same effect on our eyes.
