No, it says that it improves whatever skill is shared in common between the game and other task:
> In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task.
Which is, I mean, duh? Was someone else suggesting that playing a game would improve a completely random skill? Obviously there'd had to be something in common.
Your quote is the "common demands" I mentioned. Video games will improve your ability to do tasks very similar to what happens in the video game. The actual research done isn't relevant to the article, they just used it as one of many papers supporting the "common demands" theory.
The article is talking about how those things won't improve your general intelligence, as many people did think playing chess would randomly make you smarter.
I suppose this depends on how narrow the tasks/skills in question are, as there are various ways to measure general intelligence.
For example, there was a study indicating that playing Starcraft improved multi-tasking ability:
> Using a meta-analytic Bayes factor approach, we found that the gaming condition that emphasized maintenance and rapid switching between multiple information and action sources led to a large increase in cognitive flexibility as measured by a wide array of non-video gaming tasks.
I suppose here the rub would be, exactly how specific or different from the video game were these "non-video gaming tasks"? If they're broad enough that we consider them reasonable measurements of overall multi-tasking ability, then yes, playing Starcraft maybe made you smarter in one particular dimension. If they're all very similar to the game itself, and broader measurements found no change, then no.
> To determine changes in cognitive flexibility that occurred as a result of video gaming, participants completed a battery of psychological tasks at pre-test and post-test (at 40 hours of gaming). The battery included measures that address cognitive flexibility as well as measures of unrelated constructs. Measures of flexibility included the Attention Network Test (ANT) [28], Stroop task [29], task switching [30], a novel multi-location memory task, and test of Operating Span (Ospan; distinct from simple counting memory span) [31], [32]. These are classic measures of cognitive flexibility in that they require the switching or coordination of cognitive processes in order to successfully navigate the task at hand. For example, the task switching paradigm involves switching between two different stimulus identification tasks. All the measures in the cognitive flexibility task group assess the ability to coordinate attentional processes between two or more concurrent or alternating operations. Measures of predicted unrelated constructs included the balloon analogue risk task (BART) [33], visual search task [14], information filtering task [34], and WAIS-IV digit span memory task [35], [36]. These tasks were chosen to help delineate the specific hypothesis that RTS training would lead specifically to cognitive flexibility enhancements given that RTS game play stresses fast-paced switching and coordination of decisional processing. The visual search task and the information filtering task were chosen due to their use in previous action video game research [12], in order to differentiate RTS training from action video game training. BART and the digit span memory task were chosen due to further delineate cognitive flexibility from the broad domains of risk sensitivity and general memory. Participant groups were equated on the Multimedia Multitasking Index (MMI), a measure of the amount of time an individual spends simultaneously engaged in more than one form of media [37]. Consistent with best scientific practices and openness, the task grouping and analysis strategy were determined and publically disclosed [38] prior to data collection.
Gonna be honest here, that all sounds rather impressive to me but I have no idea what those tests actually entail.
They mention somewhere that the tests were chosen to be as similar as possible to the chosen video games actions.
You're missing the point of the research paper. From the beginning, they supported the common demands theory being discussed. They were trying to determine what aspect of a game led to the transfer of the skills to the common demand task, and found that demanding games that required you to use that skill the most led to the best transfer of those skills to the common task.
Meanwhile, the article is using the common demands theory to support their claim,
>The fact that skills learned by training do not transfer across different domains seems to be a universal in human cognition. In other words, you get better, at best, at what you train in – which may just sound just like good old fashioned common sense.
Improving your ability to attend to multiple items may have some benefit outside of video games, but it's not going to help your grades much. You'd be far better off spending that time studying.
edit sorry, I did not notice that was a different study. My broad point doesn't change though, using StarCraft to train your multitasking is just going to benefit your multitasking.
I feel like we're arguing different things. The full paragraph that I originally quoted from says:
> The failure of generalisation of a particular skill, in fact, happens to occur in many other areas beyond chess – such as music training, which has been shown to have no effect on non-music cognitive or academic abilities. The same applies to video game training, brain training, and working memory training, among others.
But then, the article they linked to doesn't support that, and you yourself agree that you can train a particular skill through games that will apply to other, non-gaming tasks that use the same skill. Yes, it won't affect other cognitive skills (duh), but it does generalize to other domains that use the same skill.
You're taking "non-music cognitive or academic abilities" to mean "abilities that will only benefit playing music" when they mean "abilities used playing music that may have some use elsewhere." Keeping time for example. The link fully supports that statement then.
The rest of the article makes it clear they realize these skills can be helpful in other areas, they mention chess helps with geometry and math at the end. And you seem to agree with the article as you think it's obvious that they won't affect other cognitive skills.
> You're taking "non-music cognitive or academic abilities" to mean "abilities that will only benefit playing music" when they mean "abilities used playing music that may have some use elsewhere."
Lol. "Music-related skills have no benefit for skills that don't benefit from music skills". Very convenient to make your supported outcome a tautology.
I'm not randomly choosing it, that definition is used throughout the article and the links provided.
Providing a minor improvement to common tasks is nothing like the boost to overall general intelligence and academic ability that people say activities like music or chess cause. Aggressive parents don't force their kids to play an instrument to improve their sense of time.
> In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task.
Which is, I mean, duh? Was someone else suggesting that playing a game would improve a completely random skill? Obviously there'd had to be something in common.
Maybe I'm misreading this though.