Researchers are reporting today that first-person-shooter video games — the kind that require players to kill or maim enemies or monsters that pop out of nowhere — sharply improve visual attention skills. I don't find this so surprising. It seems to me like it's tied to some evolutionary hunting and survival core in us, from back when we had to be on the look out in an eat or be eaten world. (ny times again! holy cow, what's going on here...)