NTU Study Reveals Bejeweled May Boost Cognitive Skills

June 9, 2010 - PRLog -- Singapore, 9 June 2010 – The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore today released results of a ten-month study on PopCap’s Bejeweled 2, showing its subjects’ improved response time and attention to details after playing the video game for ten hours in one week.  The participants were randomly selected and monitored by a group of four psychology major students from NTU’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

According to Dr. Michael Donald Patterson, Assistant Professor from NTU’s Division of Psychology, playing some computer games may actually lead to positive benefits.  “Since people in Singapore of all ages spend significant hours playing these games, it is important to understand their effects, specifically on cognition,” he said.  “We chose Bejeweled 2 because the game makes high demands on visual perception, attention, and planning.  We examined whether increased skills acquired through playing the game are transferrable to non-gaming, real-life situations.  The results of this initial study indicate that improved performance in everyday life is possible,” he added.  

Bejeweled 2 is a sequel to Bejeweled – recently awarded by Guinness World Records 2010 Gamer’s Edition as the Most Popular Puzzle Game Series of the Century – developed and published by PopCap Games.  Bejeweled 2 was chosen for the study as it is a free web-based game, which is popular amongst Singaporeans regardless of gender and age.  In addition, the game is easily accessible due to its availability on multiple gaming platforms – including Play Station, Xbox, and Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.  The game features a range of secret game-play modes that can be accessed upon completion of any of four modes – the Classic, Puzzle, Endless and Action modes.  The Action mode was chosen because it restricts players to a limited time to complete each game level – requiring players to react quickly to create as many cascades as possible in order to advance to the next level of the game.  The progressive increase in difficulty is one factor which may inspire game players to improve their play continuously.

Over the course of ten months, students were randomly recruited to participate – declaring that they had never played Bejeweled and did not play action video games on a regular basis.  This study was to examine whether playing 10 hours of Bejeweled 2 in a week would result in superior cognitive abilities, including selective attention, executive planning, and visual spatial resolution – compared to playing Pet Society, which is a neutral social networking game hosted by Facebook.  Participants were asked to take the same set of cognitive tests before and after the 10-hour game playing session.  Results showed that those who played Bejeweled 2 improved in their cognitive tests performance compared to the control group.  These Bejeweled players were able to ignore irrelevant distracters that clutter their visual environment better than their Pet Society player counterparts – translating into improved visual attention and spatial acuity.

The objective of the Bejeweled game series is to swap one gem with an adjacent one to form a chain of three or more, requiring the player to identify the correct gem to move from the rest (visual selective attention), especially when all the gems are closely packed (crowding effect).  The study incorporated the Flanker Test and the Crowding Test as the most relevant as they highlight the general phenomenon of identifying a target object in a complex setting when distracting objects are present in the immediate vicinity.

“Selective visual attention is one of the most commonly used skills applied to daily tasks, like driving and shopping.  Furthermore, being able to focus and avoid distractions is also advantageous in day-to-day life.  Therefore, we believe it is important to study whether the benefits derived from playing video games may, in fact, apply to real-life situations.  The result from the students’ final year project is an intriguing start to research into this cognitive behaviour,” Dr. Patterson concluded.

A similar outcome from a study on Bejeweled and Peggle  – other PopCap Games’ franchises – was recently announced by East Carolina University in the United States; establishing a clear link between regular exposure to video games and the resulting positive effects on cognition.

About PopCap Games
PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) is the leading multi-platform provider of fun, easy-to-learn, captivating video games that appeal to everyone from age 6 to 106. Based in Seattle, Washington, PopCap was founded in 2000 and has a worldwide staff of over 240 people in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, B.C., Dublin, and Shanghai. Its games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times by consumers worldwide, and its flagship title, Bejeweled®, has sold more than 25 million units across all platforms. Constantly acclaimed by consumers and critics, PopCap’s games are played on social networks, the Web, desktop computers, myriad mobile devices (cell phones, smartphones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, iPod, iPhone and more), popular game consoles (such as Xbox, PlayStation and DS), and in-flight entertainment systems. PopCap is the only “casual games” developer with leading market share across all major sales channels, including Web portals, retail stores, mobile phones, MP3 players, and game devices.

The PopCap logo and all other trademarks used herein that are listed at www.popcap.com/trademarks are owned by PopCap Games, Inc. or its licensors and may be registered in some countries. Other company and product names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners and are used for the benefit of those owners.

Media Contacts:

Rodaline Davila
Asia-Pacific Connections
+65 6334 9045
rodaline@apconnections.com

# # #

Asia-Pacific Connections (APC) offers innovative marketing services to companies seeking to maximise their business expansion and market development programmes across the Asia-Pacific region.