Figure 1: Video Games (IMAGE)

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Figure 1: Video Games

Caption

"Video games" encompass a wide variety of experiences. Note. Video games differ widely in their content, dynamics, and mechanics. As a result, games vary in their effects on cognitive skills. Action games, including many "first-person shooters" (top-left: Wolfenstein: The New Order) and "third-person shooters" (top-middle: Grand Theft Auto V) have been shown to enhance many cognitive functions. Others, including simple building/exploration games (top-right: Minecraft), social games (middle-left: The Sims 2), phone games (middle-middle: Angry Birds; middle-right: Candy Crush), and card games (bottom-left: Hearthstone) lack features believed to be important to the cognitive impact of action games. Even "brain games" have a wide variety--with some being gamified scholastic or lab tasks (bottom-middle: Balloons; Owen et al., 2010), while others layer effective content into interesting game environments (bottom-right: NeuroRacer; Anguera et al., 2013).

Credit

C. Shawn Green and Aaron R. Seitz

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