London, UK: A new study suggests that old people playing online puzzle games have the same memory as people in their 20s. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of York, England.
The researchers have found that individuals aged 60 and above who engage in digital puzzle games showed enhanced skills in disregarding irrelevant distractions. However, older adults who played strategy games did not display similar memory or concentration improvements.
A lot of research has focused on action games, as it is thought that reacting quickly, keeping track of targets, and so on helps attention and memory, but our new analysis shows that the action elements do not seem to offer significant benefits to younger adults.
Dr. Fiona McNab, who led the study, remarked.
In the study, both older and younger adults participated in digital games they typically engage with in their everyday lives. This approach encompassed a diverse selection of games, which were then evaluated alongside a digital experiment. In this experiment, participants were tasked with memorising images while facing distractions.
Dr. Joe Cutting, from the University of York’s Department of Computer Science, stated that, “Generally people have a good ability to ignore irrelevant distractions, something we call ‘encoding distraction’. We would expect, for example, that a person could memorise the name of a street whilst being distracted by a child or a dog, but this ability does decline as we age.”
The researchers suggest that forthcoming studies could delve into understanding why the effects of game types vary based on a player’s age. They also propose exploring whether this phenomenon is linked to how the brain retains information as individuals grow older.