Mario Kart Better Driver In Real Life
Image: STREET KART Tokyo Bay

Gamers rejoice - a recent study has revealed that playing action videogames can improve your real life driving skills. New York University Shanghai participants were trained by playing Mario Kart, using a steering-wheel controller to drive a go-kart on a track. The data showed that by playing Mario Kart the participants improved after just 10 training sessions - well, at least their visuomotor control skills did.

Researcher Li Li of New York University Shanghai had this to say on the findings:

The differing effects of driving and FPS video games on the sensorimotor system suggest that for experienced drivers, who have stable control but need to improve their ability to predict input error signals, training with FPS rather than driving video games is more effective. In contrast, for novice drivers, who are still struggling with obtaining stable control, training with driving rather than FPS video games is more helpful.

What do you think of these findings? Have you found playing Mario Kart 8 or other racing games has sharpened your real life driving skills? As always, let us know your thoughts with a comment below.

[source psychologicalscience.org]