World of Warcraft video game may help cognitive functioning

For some older adults, the online video game World of Warcraft appears to offer more than escapist adventure. North Carolina State University researchers have found that playing WoW actually boosted cognitive functioning for older adults — particularly those adults who had scored poorly on cognitive ability tests before playing the game.“We chose World of Warcraft because it has attributes we felt may produce benefits — it is a cognitively challenging game in a socially interactive environment that presents users with novel situations,” says Anne McLaughlin, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the university.