Tag: video games

Training brains—young and old, sick and healthy—with virtual reality
Rochester researchers are using virtual reality-based brain training to better understand the brain’s plasticity in athletes who have experienced concussions and older adults with mild cognitive impairments. The goal? Improved therapeutic treatments patients can do at home.

Video games and online games breaking boundaries
At the “Breaking Boundaries: Video Games in Teaching, Learning, Research, and Design” event, students and scholars discussed the impact of video games and online games on learning and culture, while getting a chance to play.

Rainbow Lecture to explore harassment in online gameworlds
In his lecture “Locker Room Talk: Pussies, Guns, and Video Gaymers,” William Cheng, assistant professor of music at Dartmouth College, will explore some of the challenges of conducting field research in online arenas such as multiplayer games and Internet threads.

Brain training video games help improve kids vision
A new study by vision scientists finds that children with poor vision see vast and lasting improvement in their peripheral vision after only eight hours of playing kid-friendly video games.

Top 10 campus pokéstops every new student should know
Pokémon Go players returning to Rochester this fall are in for a treat. The University’s River Campus is home to no less than 40 pokéstops and four gyms.

Brain tune-up from action video game play
Numerous studies have found that playing action video games such as “Call of Duty” helps cognitive functioning. Brain and cognitive sciences professor Daphne Bavelier explains how shooting zombies can enhance brain skills. / Scientific American

What’s in a game?
Senior digital media studies majors (from left) John Lockard, Yukun Liu, Gina Fabio, and Lean Mateos, are creating a video game set in a war zone. But to win the game, the object is not how many you can kill, but how many can you save.

Jane McGonigal, world-renowned designer of alternate reality games, to speak
The game designer and author will speak to 200 elite high school students from 20 nations staying on the River Campus as part of the International Baccalaureate World Student Conference.

Want to boost your brain power? A new study says video games are the answer.
Remember when you told your kids that spending too much time playing video games would make them lazy?
Now there’s a perfect comeback: Playing video games can actually make you smarter.
Really. According to a study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, playing fast-paced action video games can make someone a better learner.

Could playing video games make you smarter?
“Prior research by our group and others has shown that action gamers excel at many tasks. In this new study, we show they excel because they are better learners,” said Daphne Bavelier, a research professor in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. “And they become better learners by playing the fast-paced action games.” Bavelier said our brains keep predicting what will come next – whether when listening to a conversation, driving, or even preforming surgery. “