Action video games improve visual perception

Discover Magazine - Heightened by Halo: First-Person Video Games Are Good for Your Vision

Researchers tested groups of people who regularly played first-person action video games for detecting differences in shades of gray-- a contrast sensitivity test that is commonly associated with how well one sees. Those who played the video games regularly outperformed those who didn't by an average 58%. When a small group of non-players were assigned to play over 50 hours of action video games over 9 weeks, their subsequent test performance increased by an average 43%. Those who were assigned more 'sedate' video games that weren't action-oriented (over that same time frame) only increased contrast sensitivity by 11%. The visual improvements persisted even months after people stopped playing the action video games.