Taking issue with Michigan video game study

A new study out of Michigan State University that concludes violent video games appear to put the human brain in the mood to fight has put bloggers in the mood to argue.

In the study, 13 males played the first-person shooter game "Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror" while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) system, which measures brain activity. The brain scans of 11 of the subjects exhibited "large observed effects" characteristic of aggressive thoughts. The researchers said the pattern of brain activity can be considered to be caused by virtual violence.

At issue in the blogosphere is that the experiment used no control group--no one was playing non-violent games. Some also dismissed the study as sophistical; It's no surprise that violent video games, in the short-term, bring out aggressive behavior. Perhaps a more relevant question is whether they bring out such behavior in the long term.

Blog community response:

"The value that a study like this adds to the discussion value of video games is also difficult to assess because of what it doesn't have: any kind of comparative controls. For instance, what would a brain scan of a middle school football player show mid-game? How about kids in the backyard playing cops and robbers? Even if we do grant the neurological efforts described above, it's still a far leap to move to sociological claims regarding behavior."
--Ars Technica

"First, it is, essentially, proving that the sky is blue: any gamer could tell you the adrenaline rush they feel while playing. In fact, that is one of the major appeals of the FPS genre--an animal flee-or-fight state of mind that one just doesn??t encounter in everyday life...Second, the study sheds no light whatsoever on the matter everyone is actually interested in--namely, whether violent games have any long-term effects on a gamer...And third, the whole thing, in my opinion, is an exercise to get some funding by jumping on the 'games are evil' bandwagon."
--Tetromino Weblog

"It misses the point: while video games may cause feelings of aggression while they're being played, it's what happens to those feelings afterwards that can become problematic. It seems like most of the instances of violence blamed on video games happen after kids play, not during."
--Techdirt