Study: Gamers Make Decisions Faster

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Good news for video game enthusiasts: A new study says gamers are more proficient decision makers than their non-gaming counterparts.

According to a University of Rochester study, gamers develop an elevated sensitivity to their environment than the average person because of gaming’s effect on their probabilistic inference – the degree to which digesting smaller pieces of information leads to good decisions, says the BBC.

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The study, which will be published in Current Biology, tacks on research to an earlier study that found gamers to have more focused attention spans. “What’s really important is that we’re seeing hard scientific data get attached to the understanding of games; we’re not working just on opinion and unsubstantiated theory – that’s critical, games researcher Dan Pinchbeck told the BBC. “We need more on the table to paint an accurate picture of what’s going on with gamers, but these are tantalizing hints of what could be out there.”