6 Dec, 2011
Researchers have been researching video games for years, now. Typically, that research has involved effects on violent behavior, with some limited research into cognitive processing, but mostly with first-person shooters. Researchers at Simon Fraser University have started taking a serious look at StarCraft II.
Typically, chess has been seen as the prototypical cognitive study, but it’s been shown that skills picked up in chess don’t end up transferring to applications outside of chess. StarCraft II and other video games, on the other hand, seem to show increase in various skills such as spatial awareness and especially multitasking that may transfer to other areas more readily.
Scientific American has a great write-up on the research going on, and is actually quite interesting.
If you’ve ever watched a pro StarCraft II match (or Brood War, for that matter) then it’s obvious that the RTS genre is a cut above the rest as far as watchability (if not skill). As shown by the success of recent tournaments like Dreamhack, the IGN Pro League, and the MLG Championships, StarCraft II has grown by leaps and bounds in the eSports communities. Some of the same things that have made StarCraft II a great spectator sport, such as the built-in replay support, also make it great for research. The Simon Fraser University study is using over 3500 replays, which are a tally of every action a player makes. And they are hoping that studying all sorts of skill levels will help them see how some of the cognitive qualities improve across skill levels.
That would be nice, I guess. That would mean I have SOMETHING to show for all these hours I’ve put into StarCraft II…
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