A survey using games revealed that the cognitive function of the brain will decline from age 24

ByEmilio Garcia

Video gamesTo give good influence to humansAnd online RPGTo have a bad influence on the married life of a coupleThere are many researches using games, such as the results of research which made it clear are announced. Located in CanadaSimon Fraser UniversityResearchers ofReal time strategy game(RTS) "Starcraft 2We conducted a survey to examine the relationship between the player's brain and the aging and found that the cognitive function and reaction rate of the brain began to decline from the age of 24.

PLOS ONE: Over the Hill at 24: Persistent Age-Related Cognitive-Motor Decline in Reaction Times in an Ecologically Valid Video Game Task Begins in Early Adulthood
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0094215

Age-related brain decline starts at 24 - Technology & amp; Science - CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/age-related-brain-decline-starts-at-24-1.2611257

Starcraft 2 used in the survey is a PC game that constitutes an army in a world progressing in real time without taking a turn system and decides winning and losing with war with the opponent, many prize money competitions and professional league matches Popular title to be carried out. According to John Thompson, who led the experiment, Starcraft is a game like chess that is performed at super high speed, and prompt judgment and operation are required, and players can advance the game advantageously to the ability Thing.

ByMyrrh ahn

Thompson said, "Brain and aging experiments and studies that have been done in the past place simple tasks on subjects, it is impossible to compare experimental contents against real human behavior or judgment , There is a place which is very similar to the actual behavior and judgment of the human being by the quick judgment required by the starcraft and the operation based on the judgment.For example, when driving the automobile which requires quick and accurate operation while paying attention to the surroundings He explains why he investigated the relationship between the brain and aging using Starcraft.

Starcraft 2 has seven leagues divided according to the player's level and the survey covers 3305 players from 16 to 44 belonging to Bronze · Silver · Gold · Platinum · Diamond · Master from among them , The relationship between "age" and "reaction time from recognition of situation in the game to operation until operation".

In conducting the survey, the research team investigated the number of players belonging to each league by age. As a result, most players know that they are 15 to 30 years old.


This is a graph showing the results of the survey. In the graph, the vertical axis shows the reaction speed after recognizing the situation in the game, the horizontal axis shows the age of the player, the polygonal line shows the bronze, silver, gold, platinum diamond master The league is shown. It is obvious from the graph that the value indicating the reaction speed of players over 24 is rising as the age gets higher. In other words, it turned out that the higher the age of the player, the slower the response speed.


For players aged 24 and 39, there seems to be a difference of about 30 seconds between judging the situation in the game and taking action. However, high age players exist in the upper league despite the slow reaction speed, and such players are fighting equally with young players by using shortcuts and simple strategies.

While satisfied that Mr. Thompson got interesting results from the survey, "I was not able to retrieve data from female players or extremely low level players because I recruited subjects from the Starcraft community site "In the future, he said that he will collect data from a wide range of players regardless of gender or level.