A new study determined that people who played action-based video games such as "Unreal Tournament" for a few hours a week improved their visual acuity, or their ability to identify letters presented in clutter, by about 20 percent. In other words, it made them better able to ace tests on a standard eye chart.

Parents, beware: Your video gaming kids may now have a new argument to justify the hours they spend playing. A new study from the University of Rochester has found that playing high-action video games can actually be good for your vision.

The study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and will appear in the upcoming issue of Psychological Science, determined that people who played action-based video games such as "Unreal Tournament" for a few hours a week improved their visual acuity, or their ability to identify letters presented in clutter, by about 20 percent. In other words, it made them better able to ace tests on a standard eye chart.


"Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information," said Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the university and one of the researchers in the study. "After just 30 hours, players showed a substantial increase in the spatial resolution of their vision, meaning they could see figures like those on an eye chart more clearly, even when other symbols crowded in."