Comment Poorly organizes study, naive conclusion (Score 1) 389
Here's an example of giving morons expensive equipment and letting them make 'informed predictions' in the name of the scientific process. Some asshole japanese brain researcher did a study where two groups of kids either did some math exercise for 30 minutes or played games. The other group played Nintendo (not saying what game). Because he had them on radioactive drips, he could scan their brains in MRIs and see what parts lit up. It seems that the game players did not have their frontal lobes nearly as active as the math people. The idea is, your frontal lobes, which are responsible for learning, memory, and strategy, are what makes you able to control yourself, and deal with others. When these areas are active during childhood, you are developing an ability of control, etc.
Now here's why it sounds absurd (keep in mind that the article leaves out a lot of detail). First of all, let's establish the basic premise for his conclusion: Repeated activity of neurons strengthens their synaptic connections to one another, in the form of thicker mylenated-sheaths, and other things. This is the basic Hebbian learning theory that came out in the 40s or 50s. It's kind of like behavioral theory in a biological sense (but don't take it too far). So when Pavlov's dog was shown the bone, he salivated b/c during previous learning cycles the 'I am hungry', 'Bone satisfies hunger', and 'A bone is in front of me' parts of the brain were all lit up at the same time, so they all ended up developing neurological associations with one another. In a smaller scale sense, it is also true. If you remember an image, the shape, objects, colors, textures, etc seem to be described as a distributed network of interconnected neurons. When you see an image, it activates parts of your brain. So you 'recognize' something when something appears the same way as the neurons have captured and 'memorized' it. But this all mostly theory. But it does seem to be true, in a very basic sense.
So anyway, that is why the guy comes to that conclusion (I presume). And sure, if you spend your entire childhood playing unspecified Nintendo games instead of 30-minute sessions of addition, your brain will come out differently. Whether or not you have social skills or can control anger to me seems like a leap into absurdity. How can you extrapolate a 30-minute exercise onto a 15-year long developmental period that no one understands with psychology and cognitive theory, nevermind fucking neurology! I don't know about the state of this science, but it looks like people are so far from understanding the data that's in front of them (because of its, err... complexity) that the cognitive neurosciences need some time to filter shit studies like this one out.
Sure kids that play games probably have less refined social skills (because games are so addictive you naturally some of the time you would have spent with other kids gets spent in front of the screen). I doubt anyone who's played games will dispute that. But this kind of conclusion, based on the setup of the study, seems very naive and too hungry for drawing some kind of insight into 'today's problems with kids'.
What video games? Were they playing Mario Cart, or Tetris, or Zelda? And WTF was that comment about math making us quieter people? What do you think this guy did when he was a kid? Take a guess...
Aghh... dumb crappy cognitive studies grumble grumble...
Now here's why it sounds absurd (keep in mind that the article leaves out a lot of detail). First of all, let's establish the basic premise for his conclusion: Repeated activity of neurons strengthens their synaptic connections to one another, in the form of thicker mylenated-sheaths, and other things. This is the basic Hebbian learning theory that came out in the 40s or 50s. It's kind of like behavioral theory in a biological sense (but don't take it too far). So when Pavlov's dog was shown the bone, he salivated b/c during previous learning cycles the 'I am hungry', 'Bone satisfies hunger', and 'A bone is in front of me' parts of the brain were all lit up at the same time, so they all ended up developing neurological associations with one another. In a smaller scale sense, it is also true. If you remember an image, the shape, objects, colors, textures, etc seem to be described as a distributed network of interconnected neurons. When you see an image, it activates parts of your brain. So you 'recognize' something when something appears the same way as the neurons have captured and 'memorized' it. But this all mostly theory. But it does seem to be true, in a very basic sense.
So anyway, that is why the guy comes to that conclusion (I presume). And sure, if you spend your entire childhood playing unspecified Nintendo games instead of 30-minute sessions of addition, your brain will come out differently. Whether or not you have social skills or can control anger to me seems like a leap into absurdity. How can you extrapolate a 30-minute exercise onto a 15-year long developmental period that no one understands with psychology and cognitive theory, nevermind fucking neurology! I don't know about the state of this science, but it looks like people are so far from understanding the data that's in front of them (because of its, err... complexity) that the cognitive neurosciences need some time to filter shit studies like this one out.
Sure kids that play games probably have less refined social skills (because games are so addictive you naturally some of the time you would have spent with other kids gets spent in front of the screen). I doubt anyone who's played games will dispute that. But this kind of conclusion, based on the setup of the study, seems very naive and too hungry for drawing some kind of insight into 'today's problems with kids'.
What video games? Were they playing Mario Cart, or Tetris, or Zelda? And WTF was that comment about math making us quieter people? What do you think this guy did when he was a kid? Take a guess...
Aghh... dumb crappy cognitive studies grumble grumble...
