Researchers from a U.S. university found that playing the popular online game World of Warcraft (WoW) can improve cognitive functioning in older adults, Science Daily reported Wednesday.

According to a study by North Carolina State’s Gains Through Gaming laboratory, participants aged from 60-77 showed “significant improvement in both spatial ability and focus after playing WoW.”

“We chose World of Warcraft because it has attributes we felt may produce benefits -- it is a cognitively challenging game in a socially interactive environment that presents users with novel situations,” says Dr. Anne McLaughlin, an assistant professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of a paper on the study.

To set a baseline for the study, the researchers first tested the participants’ cognitive abilities, including spatial ability, memory and how well they could focus their attention.

Then they divided the participants into two groups: the experimental group, which played WoW for approximately 14 hours over the course of two weeks, and the control group, which did not play the video game.

After two weeks the two groups were re-tested, and the cognitive functioning of the experimental group saw much a greater increase than the control group.

However, the results varied according to each participant’s baseline score. The people with good cognitive functions to start with saw no significant improvement, but those who scored low on the initial tests improved greatly.

“The people who needed it most -- those who performed the worst on the initial testing --saw the most improvement,” said Dr. Jason Allaire, another co-author of the study.

By Yoon Min-sik
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)