Seeking edge, college hoop teams try out video game

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) Memphis forward Simplice Njoya sat hunched over a laptop, testing an theory first studied on Israeli fighter pilots.

The premise: Skills he picks up playing a complex computer game can make him a better basketball player.

"The theory is, it's going to be the weight room for the brain," Memphis assistant coach Ed Schilling said.

The on-screen action looks nothing like a basketball game but is designed to work on the visual and decision-making skills a player needs. Basketball programs at Memphis and Kentucky are testing the game to see if it gives players an edge.

Called IntelliGym, the game was created by Israeli company Applied Cognitive Engineering Inc. The company's research supervisor, Daniel Gopher, first tested the idea with a study on Israeli pilot cadets in the 1980s.

In addition to their regular training, some cadets played a computer game aimed at improving their concentration.

Gopher and colleagues at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology said in a 1994 report that cadets who played the computer game "performed significantly better" than other trainees in subsequent test flights.

The basketball training game is different than the one used by the pilots, but ACE says it is based on the same principles. The company hopes to sell the software and support for $5,000 to $10,000 a season to colleges and up to $85,000 to professional teams.

Video games are being used for everything from preparing soldiers for battle to helping surgeons improve hand-eye coordination, said Marc Prensky, author of the book, "Digital Game-Based Learning."

Daphne Bavelier, a professor of cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, said she had not seen the ACE game but knew of Gopher's work with pilots.

The basic theories are still under study, but research indicates that some video games can shorten reaction time for processing visual information, Bavelier said. She has done studies finding that young adults who played video games had better visual skills than those who didn't.

In IntelliGym, two sets of abstract figures move constantly across a dark screen. One set is larger and egg-shaped, while the other looks like small video-game spaceships.