Have you heard of Pop Cap Games?

You probably have and don’t know it.  Pop Cap is a Juggernaut of a production studio.  Just about everything they put out is a best seller.  And about 90% of those are played on your phone.  Yeah, they make those games.  Bejeweled.  Peggle.  You know what I’m talking about now.

It’s what the industry calls a “casual game”.

And East Carolina University released a study today showing that playing casual games ‘greatly increased’ short term memory in gamers over 50.  The game group showed significant improvements in short term memory than the control group.

The study was 6 months long, and had about 40 or so participants.  It directly refutes the Cambridge study from earlier in the year that showed no improvements in short term memory after playing casual games.  Dr. Carmen Russoniello, ECU’s Director of the Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic, is presenting the full study at the 6th Annual Games for Health Conference in Boston.

“Video games with more complex rules and controls, and more sophisticated or detailed imagery — so-called ‘hardcore’ video games — might provide similar cognitive benefits for many people,” said Russoniello. “But those games take significantly longer to learn to play and appeal to a considerably narrower subset of the overall population, especially older consumers. In our experience, ‘casual’ video games are ideal both in terms of their accessibility and ease of understanding and because they appeal to nearly everyone.”

So what’s the lesson here, kids?

Spend more time here at the House of Monkey, and give Grandma a copy of Bejeweled.

Link to original article.