--- title: Gaming: Gamers May Learn Visual Skills Quicker Than the Rest of Us description: A study suggests video gamers, already known to have better visual-processing, may be able to improve that skill faster than others canonical: https://time.com/3766715/video-games-gamers-visual-skills-cognitive-ability/ author: Kevin McSpadden article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-01T09:55:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:44:57.853Z article:section: Science og:title: Gamers Not Only Have Better Visual Skills, They Learn Faster og:description: Study compares gamers to musicians who can sight-read. og:url: https://time.com/3766715/video-games-gamers-visual-skills-cognitive-ability/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt23e8b7e4b795bccf/6987862b8e060110a845b0c8/video-gaming-games-brain-visual.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5760 og:image:height: 3240 og:image:alt: HaloFest for Xbox One og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Gamers Not Only Have Better Visual Skills, They Learn Faster twitter:description: Study compares gamers to musicians who can sight-read. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt23e8b7e4b795bccf/6987862b8e060110a845b0c8/video-gaming-games-brain-visual.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Level Up! 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Kevin McSpadden](https://time.com/author/kevin-mcspadden/) ## Kevin McSpadden Apr 1, 2015 9:55 AM UTC  Xbox fans play games from the popular “Halo” franchise at HaloFest at the Avalon Theatre in Los Angeles on Monday, Nov. 10, 2014 Xbox fans play games from the popular “Halo” franchise at HaloFest at the Avalon Theatre in Los Angeles on Monday, Nov. 10, 2014 Matt Sayles—Invision/AP by [Kevin McSpadden](https://time.com/author/kevin-mcspadden/) ## Kevin McSpadden Apr 1, 2015 9:55 AM UTC A [small study](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0120011) from Brown University suggests video gamers, who are already known to have a better visual-processing skills, may also be able to improve on those attributes faster than the average person. According to Brown University press, the study analyzed nine gamers and compared them with nine nongamers during a two-day trial. Researchers required participants to complete two visual tasks, one right after the other. The next day they repeated the exercises (in a random order) and compared how participants improved. What they found is that the second task interfered with the ability of nongamers to improve on the first — while gamers improved equally well on both exercises. “We sometimes see that an expert athlete can learn movements very quickly and accurately and a musician can play the piano at the very first sight of the notes very elegantly … maybe \[gamers\] can learn more efficiently and quickly as a result of training,” senior author Yuka Sasaki said. The authors admit the findings require more study, conceding that there is no proof that video games caused the learning improvement, since people with quick visual-processing skills could be naturally drawn to gaming. ### See The 15 Best Video Game Graphics of 2014  Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Activision's futuristic first-person shooter in which players take on a rogue private military company uses a brand new engine built specifically for PCs and new-gen consoles to handle its cutting-edge lighting, animation and physics. Sledgehammer Games/Activision  Far Cry 4\. This pulled back shot of fictional Himalayan region Kyrat is in-game, believe it or not, rendered with an overhauled version of the engine Ubisoft used to design Far Cry 3. Ubisoft  The Last of Us: Remastered. Naughty Dog's meditation on the worst (and best) of humanity is built on technology that reaches back through the studio's pulp-adventure Uncharted series. The graphics are so impressive, TIME recently assigned a conflict photographer to photograph inside the game. Ashley Gilbertson for TIME  Alien: Isolation Built from scratch, the Alien: Isolation engine's outstanding deep space visuals all but replicate the set design of Alien film concept artists H.R. Giger and Ron Cobb's work. The Creative Assembly  Assassin's Creed Unity. Ubisoft says it "basically remade the whole rendering engine" in its AnvilNext design tool to handle the studio's meticulous recreation of Paris during the French Revolution. Ubisoft  Child of Light Inspired by filmmakers like Hayao Miyazaki and artist Yoshitaka Amano, Child of Light's hand-drawn artwork puts the lie to presumptions that graphical richness depends on shader support or polygon counts. Ubisoft  Destiny Built from scratch by ex-Halo studio Bungie, Destiny's game engine was designed to scale across the next decade, says the studio. Bungie  Mario Kart 8 Nintendo's kart-racer for Wii U reminds us that raw horsepower is just a facet of crafting a beautiful game world. Nintendo  Infamous Second Son Sucker Punch's freeform Seattle-based superhero adventure models all sorts of minutia, from the intricate wrinkling of an aged character's face to the way eyelids stick, slightly, before separating when characters blink. Sucker Punch Productions  Monument Valley Escher-like at first glance, Ustwo's mind-bending puzzler was also inspired by posters, bonsai plants, arabic calligraphy and filmmaker Tarsem Singh's The Fall. Ustwo  Grand Theft Auto V Rockstar's remastered crime spree opus was crafted from an in-house engine first employed in a game that simulated table tennis. Rockstar  Titanfall Respawn Entertainment  Forza Horizon 2 Turn 10's Euro-racer actually models light refracted through drops of moisture, the render tech plausibly simulating something as intangible but essential as the earth’s atmosphere. Microsoft Studios/Turn 10 Studios  80 Days Inkle's anti-colonialist vamp on Jules Verne's famous novel uses crisp art deco imagery inspired by travel posters to unfurl 80 Days' tale of intrepid globetrotters Monsieur Fogg and his valet Passepartout. Inkle  Tomb Raider Crystal Dynamics' radical reboot of its popular series about an athletic archaeologist uses a modified version of the engine that powered Tomb Raider: Legend in 2006. Square Enix ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3766715/video-games-gamers-visual-skills-cognitive-ability/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3766715/video-games-gamers-visual-skills-cognitive-ability/"},"headline":"Level Up! 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