According to a new study, playing video games might improve learning.

According to a new study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week, playing video games is helpful with cognitive development. Other findings have also indicated that video games do not necessarily affect your mood. The new study opens the debate on extensive video game playing yet again.

The study posited playing action video games such as "Call of Duty" stimulate the brain's ability to "learn how to learn," the lead researcher, a psychologist at Princeton University, Vikranth Bejjanki said according to Popular Mechanics. Other video games have helped with spatial development.

"We've seen improvements in tasks like efficiently tracking a large number of objects, accurately rotating an object in your mind, and perceiving slight changes on a display," Bejjanki said.

Bejjanki and his colleagues carried out the study by enlisting a group of avid action video gamers, as well as non-gamers, to participate. A series of experiments were carried out that were designed to measure the participants' abilities to tackle specific tasks.

In one experiment, participants had to identify the orientation of fuzzy blotches on a screen with varying levels of background noise. This was a vital visual test that started out hard, but then got easier. In another experiment, the scientists compared avid action video gamers with those who did not play those sorts of games. The scientists had the action gamers and non-action gamers do the blotch test eight separate times, then they had the participants track how they they improved with practice.

Further research had trained non-gamers play 50 hours of two video games, "Unreal Tournament" and "Call of Duty 2." From this particular experiment, the scientists tested to see how much the non-gamers had improved versus non-gamers who had been trained to play slower strategy games.

Other video games studies have somewhat proven that action-oriented video games could help improve reaction times and hand to eye coordination, The Washington Post reported. General video game research posits that it helps with spatial visualization ability.

Similarly, the findings from Bejjanki's study confirm that extensive video game-playing improves performance in perception, attention and cognition. Video games in general touch all demographics, beyond age, gender, ethnicity or education.

Further interaction with video games was found to help stimulate learning, and present an opportunity to develop transferable skills or practice challenging activities such as flight simulators or simulated operations like a black ops mission.

Not everyone agrees with study, however.

Walter Boot, a psychologist who researches action video games at Florida State University, said that Bejjanki's study is more complicated than people think. He added that the research is difficult for anyone to understand.

In addition, a theory like Bejjanki's was tested and came to an opposite conclusion, Popular Mechanics reported.

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