Study Links Video Games With Heightened Creativity

S. Shyam Sundar, an Indian-origin media researcher at Penn State, has completed a study which links video games and heightened creativity. The study involved 98 undergraduate and graduate students. Subjects were asked to play Dance Dance Revolution, on various levels of difficulty. The students took a standard creativity test, had their skin conductance measured for a physical response and were asked whether the experience left them feeling positive or negative.

Subjects that were energized by playing and put in a positive mood were most likely to have new ideas for problem solving. However the effect on creativity doesn’t end there. Players that were not highly energized, and had a negative mood tested even higher on creativity.

“You need defocused attention for being creative. When you have low arousal and are negative, you tend to focus on detail and become more analytical,” said Sundar, a professor of Film, Video and Media Studies at Penn State.

“When you are highly aroused, the energy itself acts as a catalyst, and the happy mood acts as an encouragement. It is like being in a zone where you cannot be thrown off your game,” said Sundar.

“We are not looking just at creative games, but what emotional elements of games can serve as an engine to spark creative thought and new problem solving skills,” said Sundar, who is also a founder of the Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory.

The goal of the research is to find ways to use video games in education to stimulate creativity and in business to improve corporate decision-making.

“The key is to generate emotion. Ideally, a good teacher can energize the class and make them much more emotionally invested through presentations, guest lectures, and group discussions. Video games can help achieve that in an already simulated way,” said Sundar.

I guess one variable that might effect whether the players were left in a positive or negative move might be whether they had an audience or not.

via Thaindian News