Science is a pretty interesting thing, especially when it concerns the human mind and how it works. This was the focus of some professors at the Carleton University in Canada, who have just conducted a study that has proven that if you play car racing video games you are more likely to buy some real-life cars that appear in said titles.

While the conclusion may seem a bit awkward, the study doesn't lie as it has been conducted in scientific conditions. Two groups of people were turned into guinea pigs, with one of them getting the chance to play a racing video game on an Xbox 360, and the other one being forced to watch in a separate room a live video feed of the game that people in the first group played.

The results of the study were pretty staggering to the university professors, as, although those who merely watched expressed a mild interest in the cars featured on the screen, those who had been playing were really keen to find out more about the vehicles and see local dealership offers on said cars. Sadly, we have no details on the game that people were playing so it seems that this is left to our own imagination.

But before car makers go and sell the image rights to their creations to all the video game developers and publishers, let's not forget that this is only a study on a specific number of people, and not something that can be applied to the worldwide population. But hopefully we will get to see real cars in a lot of other games, not only in Need For Speed for example, but also in titles such as Grand Theft Auto or Burnout Paradise, which featured imaginary vehicles that only hinted at some of the models found in real life.