My girlfriend plays video games--it's awesome. She likes to joke that somewhere inside of her is trapped the mind of a 16-year-old boy, just trying to express himself (video games, jamming on the drums, wearing awesome pageboy hats, gender studies)--it can be weird. Guess what, honey? Things just got more awkward.
A Stanford study has shown that video games activate the reward zone in men's brains more intensely than in women's, which I suppose means I'm more likely to get cancer, but learn a lot more about physics. So... it's a wash?
Dr. Alan Reiss of Stanford created a video game with ten balls moving towards a wall. If the balls are kept away, the wall moves farther back and gives the player more screen territory. If the ball hits the wall, the player loses territory. (NB: The study's main focus is on reactions to territory, not video games.)
11 men and 11 women played in 24-second bursts while being hooked up to a fMRI machine to display dynamic images of brain activity. The subjects weren't given instruction past to try and click the balls, but the quickly learned how to play. Men and women clicked the same number of balls, but the men clicked the balls closest to the wall (the most important) more frequently.
And while both men and women showed activity in the brain's mesocorticolimbic center, the reward/addiction zone, men showed significantly more activity--and it was correlated with success in the game.
"The females 'got' the game, and they moved the wall in the direction you would expect," said Reiss. "They appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed."
The takeaway for the researchers is that men feel more rewarded by gaining territory, even if it's in a computer game, than women. Reiss says that's not surprising, ("It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species-they're the males.") and since most games are territorial or aggression-based (yay!), men's neural circuitry may make them more likely to enjoy/become addicted to games.
"This is a fairly representative, generic computer game," concluded Reiss.
Really? Well, that's at least half true. At least my girlfriend and I can still share Rock Band. Maybe.
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Mom says:
"since most games are territorial or aggression-based (yay!), men's neural circuitry may make them more likely to enjoy/become addicted to games."
So, can I take that "may make them more likely" as ammo for my side about the cons of violent video games being played by your nephews?
Proud of you I am. Still. Always.
February 5, 2008 10:45 AM
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