Hi nj, Let's assume that some set of 'skill' is gained by certain video games- by the way, this is an assumption that is riddled with potential contradictions.  But let's assume that what is being measured is the increase in some aggragate of behaviors that we identify as a 'skill'.  While it makes a great headline for a newspaper to use the word 'killing', and while it makes a great soundbite for the researcher, to indentify the unspecified verb 'to kill' as the cause of the increased skill is to mistake a content of the game playing experience with the formal characteristics which are at play.  In reading the article and comments by the so called scientist, it was quicky obvious that the set of variables that might be increasing the skill of the player is clearly independent of he content killing.  The game could just as easily be about rescuing children.  I think the so called scientist would come to this conclusion if proded, but I happen to believe that he/she has a responsibility to represent his/her findings in a way that is congruent with the methodology through which they were obtained.  This, by the way, is why I have such high respect for the authors of "whispering" and how they have gone about describing both what they have discovered and HOW. J Rose