According to Prensky, games provide the same rich and extremely flexible experience for engaging learners/players/readers in developing the types of understanding and perspective that Murphy Paul and Elias describe in their discussion of the ways in which literature helps its readers develop social, emotional and interpersonal literacies.

as controlled environments within which children can safely explore social rules and norms and test-drive new identities. This is essentially what the studies indicate in regards to literature being an avenue for readers to gain deep insight into the thought processes of others.

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.