Longevity Investigation 007
Can Competitive Gaming Protect the Ageing Brain?
Action gamers outperform non-gamers on attention tests, and one computerised speed training programme was linked to lower dementia risk ten years later. What high-level play may build for life, and where the evidence stops.
Most writing about gaming and health is about harm: sleep, posture, screen time. The other side of the question is more interesting. Competitive FPS play demands sustained attention, rapid visual processing, spatial reasoning and split-second decisions for hours at a time. Could that training build capacities that carry over into everyday life, and even into old age?
The evidence is better than sceptics expect and weaker than enthusiasts claim.
What gamers are better at
Bediou, Adams, Mayer, Tipton, Green & Bavelier, 2018
High relevance to competitive play
Meta-analysis of action video game impact on perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills
Psychological Bulletin 144(1):77–110 doi:10.1037/bul0000130
- Sample
- Two meta-analyses, Habitual action gamers vs non-gamers; and non-gamers trained on action games vs control games
- Design
- Meta-analysis of cross-sectional and intervention studies, 2000 to 2015
- Intervention
- Action video game play
- Result
- Habitual action gamers outperformed non-gamers by about half a standard deviation (g = 0.55). In intervention studies, training on action games produced a smaller causal effect (g = 0.34). The strongest effects were in top-down attention and spatial cognition.
- Limitations
- A rival meta-analysis in the same journal (Sala, Tatlidil & Gobet, 2018) found no convincing causal effect of video game training on cognition broadly. Many training studies were short.
The gap between the two numbers is the key point. Part of the gamer advantage is probably selection: people with strong attention and spatial skills may be drawn to action games and stay with them. Part appears to be caused by play, because training non-gamers produces measurable gains. How much of each is still debated, and the sceptical meta-analysis by Sala and colleagues argues the causal part is close to zero.
Dye, Green and Bavelier (2009) reviewed the speed side specifically. Across many tasks, action gamers responded faster than non-gamers without losing accuracy, which suggests better information processing rather than simply clicking sooner.
The dementia question
The most striking result comes not from commercial games but from a computerised training task that resembles them.
Edwards et al., 2017
Moderate relevance to competitive play
Speed of processing training results in lower risk of dementia
Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions 3(4):603–611
- Sample
- n = 2,802 at baseline, Healthy older adults in the ACTIVE trial; 1,220 completed 10-year follow-up
- Design
- Randomised controlled trial with 10-year follow-up
- Intervention
- Computerised speed-of-processing training vs memory training, reasoning training or no-contact control
- Result
- Speed training was associated with a 29% lower hazard of dementia over 10 years (HR 0.71, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.998, p = 0.049). Memory and reasoning training were not significant. Each additional training session was associated with a 10% lower hazard (unadjusted).
- Limitations
- The result only just reached significance. Dementia was not the trial's original primary outcome, and attrition was high. Not a commercial game.
The speed training in ACTIVE asked older adults to identify and locate briefly presented targets under time pressure, with difficulty increasing as they improved. In other words, it trained rapid visual attention, the same capacity that competitive FPS play loads heavily.
That overlap is intriguing, but it is easy to overstate. ACTIVE did not test games. The effect is borderline. And no study has followed competitive gamers into old age to see whether their dementia risk differs. Any claim that gaming prevents dementia is, for now, a hypothesis built on a single borderline result from a related training task.
Why transfer is the hard part
Cognitive training has a long history of a frustrating pattern: people get very good at the trained task and only slightly better, or no better, at anything else. Gaming may be an exception because it is varied, demanding and motivating in a way that repetitive brain-training exercises are not. That is also why researchers like Bavelier have suggested action games are a model for what effective training looks like.
The honest position is that gaming probably trains some general capacities, especially visual attention and spatial processing, more than most leisure activities do. Whether that adds up to protection against cognitive ageing is unknown.
What competitive play may build
| Capacity | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Visual attention and processing speed | Good: cross-sectional and training studies |
| Spatial cognition | Good, with debate about causation |
| Faster responses without lost accuracy | Good, from reviews of action gamers |
| Lower dementia risk | Hypothesis; one borderline result from related speed training |
| General intelligence or memory | Weak or contested |
Two cautions apply. First, the benefits come from play in moderation. The sleep loss, inactivity and stress of extreme schedules carry their own long-term costs, and those risks are better established than the cognitive benefits. Second, “gamers are better at attention tests” is not the same as “games made them better”. Good science keeps both ideas in view.
References
- Bediou B, Adams DM, Mayer RE, Tipton E, Green CS, Bavelier D. Meta-analysis of action video game impact on perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills. Psychol Bull. 2018;144(1):77–110. doi:10.1037/bul0000130
- Sala G, Tatlidil KS, Gobet F. Video game training does not enhance cognitive ability: a comprehensive meta-analytic investigation. Psychol Bull. 2018.
- Dye MWG, Green CS, Bavelier D. Increasing speed of processing with action video games. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2009;18(6):321–326. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01660.x
- Edwards JD, Xu H, Clark DO, Guey LT, Ross LA, Unverzagt FW. Speed of processing training results in lower risk of dementia. Alzheimers Dement (N Y). 2017;3(4):603–611. PMC5700828
NeuroFPS publishes scientific analysis, not medical advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to take any substance or a dosing guide. Responses vary between individuals; speak to a doctor or pharmacist before changing anything you take.