什麼？兒時玩電子遊戲會帶來認知能力的持久提升

小時候父母都不讓我們打電子遊戲，覺得打遊戲是浪費時間，會荒廢學業，但是如今新研究指出，小時候玩電子遊戲的人長大後的工作記憶力更強、反應更快。

A number of studies have shown how playing video games can lead to structural changes in the brain, including increasing the size of some regions, or to functional changes, such as activating the areas responsible for attention or visual-spatial skills. New research from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has gone further to show how cognitive changes can take place even years after people stop playing.

大量研究表明，玩電子遊戲會導致腦結構變化，包括增加某些區域的大小，或導致大腦產生功能性改變，如激活負責注意力或視覺空間技能的區域。加泰羅尼亞歐貝塔大學的最新研究進一步表明，即使不玩遊戲好幾年後，其導致的認知變化也會發生。

This is one of the conclusions from the article published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. The study involved 27 people between the ages of 18 and 40 with and without any kind of experience with video gaming.

這是一篇發表在《人類神經科學前沿》上的論文得出的一個結論。該研究涉及27位年齡在18至40歲之間的人，他們當中的一部分人完全沒碰過電子遊戲。

"People who were avid gamers before adolescence, despite no longer playing, performed better with the working memory tasks, which require mentally holding and manipulating information to get a result,” said Marc Palaus, the author of the study.

論文作者馬克·帕勞斯表示：“那些在青春期以前熱愛玩遊戲的人，儘管現在不再玩遊戲，但他們在工作記憶任務中表現更好，而這需要注意力更集中、信息獲取能力更強。”

The results show that people without experience of playing video games as a child did not benefit from improvements in processing and inhibiting irrelevant stimuli. Indeed, they were slower than those who had played games as children, which matched what had been seen in earlier studies.

結果表明，兒童時期沒有電子遊戲經驗的人無法從中獲得優化腦部處理能力和抑制無關刺激的效果。他們比兒時玩遊戲的人反應更慢，這與早先的研究結果吻合。

Likewise, “people who played regularly as children performed better from the outset in processing 3D objects, although these differences were mitigated after the period of training in video gaming, when both groups showed similar levels,” said Palaus.

帕勞斯稱：“從小經常玩電子遊戲的人從一開始就在處理3D任務方面表現更好，不過經過電子遊戲訓練後，兩組表現出相似的水平，差距得以縮小。”

The study lasted a month and the researchers analysed participants’ cognitive skills, including working memory, at three points: before starting the training in video gaming, at the end of the training, and fifteen days later. The video game used was Nintendo’s Super Mario 64.

這項研究歷時一個月，研究人員分三次評估了參與者的工作記憶等認知技能：開始進行電子遊戲培訓之前，培訓結束時，以及培訓結束十五天之後。使用的電子遊戲是任天堂的超級馬里奧64。

The study also included 10 sessions of transcranial magnetic stimulation. This is non-invasive brain stimulation through the skin that temporarily changes the brain’s activity.

研究過程中還對參與者進行了10次經顱磁刺激。這是通過皮膚進行的非侵入性大腦刺激，可暫時改變大腦活動的模式。

"It uses magnetic waves which, when applied to the surface of the skull, are able to produce electrical currents in underlying neural populations and modify their activity,” explained Palaus.

帕勞斯解釋說：“使用電磁波，將其施加到顱骨表面時，能夠在潛在的神經羣中產生電流並改變其活動。”

The researchers wanted to find out if combining video gaming and this kind of stimulation would improve cognitive performance, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

研究人員想知道將電子遊戲與經顱刺激相結合是否能改善認知能力，結果發現並不能。

"We aimed to achieve lasting changes. Under normal circumstances, the effects of this stimulation can last from milliseconds to tens of minutes. We wanted to achieve improved performance of certain brain functions that lasted longer than this,” said Palaus.

帕勞斯說：“我們的目標是實現持久的改善。在正常情況下，這種刺激的效果可以持續幾毫秒到幾十分鐘。我們希望提高某些大腦功能的表現，並持續更長的時間。”

According to Palaus, what most video games have in common is that they involve elements that make people want to continue playing, and that they gradually get harder and present a constant challenge. “These two things are enough to make it an attractive and motivating activity, which, in turn, requires constant and intense use of our brain’s resources.”

根據帕勞斯所說，遊戲的最大共同點是，它們包含使人們想要玩下去的元素，而且逐漸變得越來越難，並提出了持續的挑戰。“這兩件事足以使它具有吸引力和激勵性，反過來又需要不斷地高強度地使用我們的大腦資源。”

"Video games are a perfect recipe for strengthening our cognitive skills, almost without our noticing,” he said.

帕勞斯指出：“電子遊戲是增強我們認知能力的完美秘訣，潛移默化地發揮着作用。”