The good news: A new study shows that playing real-time strategy games
improves your cognitive flexibility. The bad news: No one has ever picked up a girl by bragging about their cognitive flexibility.
Training in action video games can increase the speed of perceptual processing. However, it is unknown whether video-game training can lead to broad-based changes in higher-level competencies such as cognitive flexibility, a core and neurally distributed component of cognition. To determine whether video gaming can enhance cognitive flexibility and, if so, why these changes occur, the current study compares two versions of a real-time strategy (RTS) game.