Virtual Tasks

• Video games give players a number of tasks to perform, such as jumping on platforms, shooting at moving targets or controlling the ball on a basketball court. Gamers must carefully watch the screen, evaluate the data (how many defenders guard the small forward, how high is the platform, what direction is the target moving) and press buttons on the controller accordingly. As gaming environments are ever changing, players must adapt quickly and put their hand-eye coordination skills to the test.
  
  

Detecting Elements of the Environment

• According to research by the University of Rochester in New York, as reported by National Geographic, "action video games train the brain to better process certain visual information." As one researcher, associate professor Daphne Bavelier, suggests, video games are useful when training people to detect elements in their visual environment. The report states that action video gamers driving down the street are more "likely to pick out a child running after a ball than a non-video gamer."
  
  

Helping Professionals

• Good video games skills can result in surgical prowess, according to a joint study by the Beth Israel Medical Center and Iowa State University. According to a researcher, Dr. James Rosser, video games and surgery require the same hand-eye coordination skills. A prominent example is laparoscopic surgery, a technique using a tiny camera and instruments controlled by joysticks outside the body. As Rosser explained, he uses the same kind of skills to save a life using such equipment and to score a goal at SEGA's Super Monkey Ball.
  
  

Non-Repetitive Actions

• According to assistant professor Paul Schrater from the University of Minnesota, the challenging and versatile tasks of video games are a vital factor of hand-eye coordination improvement. As he suggested on the university's newspaper, "If the only thing you do is shoot free throws over and over again, it stops being fun, and you stop learning." However, the assistant professor also acknowledged that significant improvement requires significant investment of time on behalf of the gamers.