Action games may improve eyesight

A new study by researchers at the University of Rochester concludes action video games may help adults improve their eyesight. Players of games like Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament showed enhanced contrast sensitivity compared with those in a non-action game group, with improvements ranging up to 58 percent. Professor of brain and cognitive sciences Daphne Bavelier said games could be beneficial to people who have amblyopia (lazy eye) and those who have trouble seeing while driving at night.

"Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery--somehow changing the optics of the eye," Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, said in a statement. "But we've found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."

Researchers studied two groups that played video games for 50 hours during a nine-week course. One group played action games such as "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament 2004." Another group played non-action games such as "Sims 2," which doesn't require precise, visually guided aiming actions. People who played the action games showed enhanced contrast sensitivity compared with those in the non-action game group, with improvements ranging from 43 percent to 58 percent, according to the study.

More details at CNET.