This ultra-violent video game makes its users less empathetic to pain from the first 40 minutes spent in front of the screen.
- Born in 2003, Call of Duty is a shooting game that offers to engage in confrontations alone or as a team.
- Call of Duty is an FPS (First Person Shooter): the player sees through the eyes of his character.
- 100 million people play it every month.
According to a new study published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media, people who frequently play violent video games like Call of Duty are less sensitive to pain.
Confrontation with painful images
To reach this conclusion, the researchers recruited 56 students, voluntarily eliminating the girls so that there is no bias linked to the gender of the players. They first asked them to rate the degree of emotion triggered in them by seeing painful images, such as getting a hand stuck in a door. All the young people then played 40 minutes of Call of Duty, and then were again confronted with clichés evoking suffering.
Before analyzing all the answers, the scientists divided the students into two distinct groups: the first was made up of those who played Call of duty a lot (more than eight hours a week), and the second of those who did not. little or no play.
Real life consequences?
Thanks to electroencephalograms, they then found that Call of Duty fans reacted less to pain than others from the first exposure to violent images. In addition, non-video game enthusiasts were also less sensitive to clichés evoking suffering after 40 minutes spent in front of the screen.
The researchers conclude: “Our results contribute to the debate regarding the effects of violent video games on the brain by providing the first evidence of ERP (Event-Related Potential) pain desensitization”, which designates the modification of the electrical potential produced by the nervous system in response to an external stimulation, in particular sensory (a sound, an image, etc.).
“While such an adaptation may be beneficial when playing a violent video game, its real-life implications should be further investigated,” says the director of the study.
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