A new study by the School of Psychology at the University of Leicester comes to the conclusion that first-person shooters can help players better perceive motion... while walking backwards. The research was recently published in a paper called "Selectively enhanced motion perception in core video gamers" in the journal Perception. The research took a close look at the effects of playing video games on motion perception by testing 16 people who played first person shooters for more than ten hours a week. The study also used a control group of 16 people who played less than an hour a week.
The study found that the only difference was in the perception of radial motion - when a person is traveling backwards and their surroundings appear to get smaller as they get farther away. Ultimately researchers concluded that playing FPS games a lot has no effect on motion perception.
"Our study suggests playing a lot of action video games does not really have much effect on motion perception," Dr. Claire Hutchinson said. "I probably would have expected people who play a lot of games to do better at these tests - but if you think about it, when you walk and drive a car you experience the same movements in daily life.
Hutchinson added that the results do show that games have the ability to train a player's visual system. The next step, she says is to do a similar test using different kinds of games...