Can Video Games Boost Short-Term Memory? Scientists Find Positive Results With Rhythmicity

A study found that participants who trained on the Rhythmicity video game showed increased activity in the brain’s superior parietal lobule.

Video games can help boost certain brain functions when used in the correct way.

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Video games, over the years, have evolved from being a casual entertainment platform to a global pop culture phenomenon worth multi-billion dollars, doling out everything from merch to movies. Not only that, video games have a responsible side to them as well. Over the years, video games have helped health professionals around the world develop physiological therapy courses (by using motion-based gaming peripherals such as Nintendo Wii) for those in need. A recent study has found that a musical rhythm-based game, initially designed to teach drumming skills, can help improve short-term memory.

As part of the study led by researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), 47 adult participants aged between 60 and 79 years were divided into two groups — one playing a regular word search game and the other playing a musical rhythm game called Rhythmicity — for 20 minutes a day for a total of 40 days. The details of the study were published in the peer-reviewed platform PNAS earlier this month, as reported by Science Alert.  

Rhythmicity, developed in collaboration with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, uses visual cues to teach a user how to play rhythm on a tablet. As the players progress, the complexity of the patterns in the game gets more challenging. The game can also tailor itself to suit the gamer’s abilities, to ensure that nothing becomes too complex to handle.

Now, after the training period was over, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to analyse participants’ progress. This involved the subjects taking a recognition task that involved identifying unknown faces. It was found that those who took the Rhythmicity path showed increased activity in the brain’s superior parietal lobule, which is linked to sight reading music and short-term visual memory. It was generally found that Rhythmicity players showed a notable development in short-term memory. 

What this research essentially does is prove that the right use of video games could help people maintain mental sharpness, especially in old age.