14 DAY TRIAL // Initial results of a research project at the University of East Carolina suggest that playing videogames like Peggle and Bejeweled, both casual PopCap made titles, can actually improve the cognitive function in the brains of the subjects. The study has been going for six months and complete results will arrive by the end of the year and PopCap (which is mentioning that it has not provided the study authors with any financial support) will probably use the findings in order to boost sales among the more elderly gamers.
Doctor Carmen Russoniello, Director of the Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic at the East Carolina University, said, “The initial results of the study are very intriguing, in that they suggest that the 'active participation' required while playing a casual video game like Bejeweled provides an opportunity for mental exercise that more passive activities, like watching television, do not. Future applications could include prescriptive applications using casual video games to potentially stave off Alzheimer's disease and other dementia-type disorders.”
The study started out with 40 subjects and more were added as it got underway. The Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic used both EEG and a standardized test called the Trail Making Test.
They showed that those subjects who were playing short sessions of about 30 minutes of Peggle and Bejeweled had a 87 percent improvement in the cognitive response and an increase of 215% of the executive function, which sees if a track is completed correctly, when compared to the control group. The research team is saying that these kinds of improvements are comparable to those seen when the subjects are put through “mindfulness based cognitive therapy and cognitive remediation therapy.”
Recently, other studies have debunked claims that brain training videogames manage to increase the brain abilities of those who play them. It will be interesting to see if this claim linked to Bejeweled and Peggle stands up to the test of time.