
Gamers make faster decisions than nongamers, just as accurate - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/09/gamers-make-faster-decisions-than-nongamers-are-just-as-accurate.ars
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metamemetics
Regardless of the subject, this article is superbly written and a great
example of how to cover psychology articles as a reporter.

Instead of simply stating the most headling grabbing implication of the
research and leaving it at that, it went in depth to show the "what if"
questions researchers controlled for rather than leaving us to guess or hunt
down a copy of the real research paper (the reader is lazy, were not going to
do it). Hopefully we get more submissions likes this when it comes to
psychology articles and less 'scientist found X, the end'

~~~
Deestan
I was genuinely _thrilled_ that the article brought up the points about
causality vs. correlation.

Then I was sad, because it reminded me how rare it is. Almost every news
article about research I've read the past 20 years has been of the form
"Scientists have found that X causes Y, and here is the correlation along with
some uneducated speculation."

~~~
AmberShah
<http://xkcd.com/552/>

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TGJ
When I am in the zone playing COD for instance, I can run into a room, see
three people and determine an optimum shooting strategy in under a second. For
instance, if one guy is turned I can shoot him last and instead shoot the
closest then the second determine the best place to duck to reload if needed.
All the while, I process sound from everywhere else, keep a running map in my
head (I'm very good with spatial orientation) and can check off where
explosions have taken place or possible spawn points coming up.

I can also tell the difference between a player with an 80ms ping and a 30ms
ping.

This all comes with a caveat. I have been playing for ~8 years off and on so I
have experience and confidence in my abilities. Also, to achieve such a state
to determine split second actions, my heart rate is well above a sedentary
resting state. Once I figured this out, I stopped playing as much as I can
only assume that the adrenaline rushes from gaming while sitting can only be
bad for my health.

Two cents..

~~~
forensic
From my years of top-level competitive FPS gaming I eventually determined the
same thing.

A high level of play is greatly facilitated by a high heart rate and an
adrenaline rush.

The best gamers, by far, are the ones who combine years of practice with
amphetamines.

It works for the airforce and it works for gaming.

I decided that the constant self-induced adrenaline rushes were bad for my
health and so I stopped playing those kinds of games.

~~~
frou_dh
I used to get distracted in tense Quake 3 duels because I would become aware
of my heart racing.

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staunch
The fact that I'm a huge gamer helped me decide instantly that this finding is
correct.

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DanielBMarkham
And will also help many more people on many more social sites decide that it
needs to be upvoted, while the ad for Halo Reach at the bottom of the article
will ensure that the publisher gets paid handsomely for their work.

Nice little trifecta: article topic, emotional impact, and commercial-event
tie-in. Very nicely done.

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enanoretozon
Couldn't the same be said of people who play sports or jazz or any other thing
that involves making fast decisions?

It's like there's this desperate need of justifying playing video games with
every new study that says 'look! I am not actually wasting my time!'

Personally I think no silly justification is needed as there's nothing wrong
with enjoying entertainment.

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noahth
I think the fact that this is comparable to sports or jazz is exactly the
point. While I imagine that you'd have to go back prettaayyyy far to find the
time when sports were demonized as anything from an utter sin to a slightly
pitiable time-waster, jazz certainly endured those characterizations when it
was emerging into popular culture.

The same is true of any number of other media that now enjoy nigh-immeasurable
popular esteem: the novel, for example. If we'd had the same educational-
industrial apparatus then as we do now, surely some enterprising PhD candidate
would have staked his career on studies illuminating the benefits of reading
novels.

EDIT: I forgot to mention this - the real question that remains is just how
valuable this effect of gaming is in the non-gaming world. And boy is that a
doozy of a question!

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fgf
ability in sport = martial prowess / hunting skills / good health in general /
good genes in general -- It has always been more or less universally
respected.

Jazz players always had subculture specific social status, same with hip-hop
pioneers, early rock musicians etc.

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yesbabyyes
_Jazz players always had subculture specific social status, same with hip-hop
pioneers, early rock musicians etc._

As have gamers.

~~~
fgf
"social status" that doesn't get you laid =//= social status that does

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vitolds
According to The Invisible Gorilla (very interesting book btw) there have been
other experiments done with gamers that supposedly found improved cognitive
abilities resulting from intense FPS gameplay. However, the authors of the
book did more digging and concluded that some of those experiments on gamers
were never independently confirmed by other experimenters. Here's an article
on the subject: [http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2010/04/20/the-limits-
of...](http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/blog/2010/04/20/the-limits-of-cognitive-
training/)

~~~
Shorel
That sentence is not entirely clear to me.

Did it imply that the experiments were never repeated or that the experiments
were repeated and the results were negative?

~~~
vitolds
results were negative.

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dman99
Seems logical. After hours and hours of poker I find it easier to figure out
my odds in all sorts of situations. The same concept could be applied to video
games.

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siddhant
Maybe it isn't really the same concept. While playing poker, you usually take
your time to calculate each move, but the _reaction_ time is much, much less
in video games (faster decisions).

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BrandonM
That might be true if you're playing live or mainly for fun, but when you're
playing 12 or more tables, poker starts to look a lot like those video games
in terms of decision speeds. Throw in the need to remember how you've been
playing on 12 different tables in addition to how 100 other players have been
playing, and your attempt to trivialize poker playing looks somewhat silly.

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pajarito
The history of probability and statistic show us that a gambler can
distinguish between two states whose probability is very similar (1/36 or so),
so if a gambler has more information that a nongamer then he can use that
information to be more accurate and make a faster decision.

~~~
eru
Do you have more information about those findings?

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Tycho
I started playing blitz chess online recently instead of normal chess (I play
2 mins with 7 second increment, rather than 15 mins with 30 sec increment).
I'm not sure playing chess makes you better at anything else but I think it
let's you learn a few things about yourself. For instance, I don't think it's
made that much difference to my game, suggesting most of my thinking time had
been going to waste previously. Also tells you how much failure is down to
stupid mistakes vs. the other player being smarter.

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Myrth
My guess is it's all about trained muscles that make eyes do microscopic
movements.

Eyes can see only things that move, and to see a static picture there are
special muscles that make retina move all the time the eyes are open (that's
why blinking or closing eyes for short time gives them rest and helps to
relax).

People that have these muscles more developed and move faster are able to
notice and comprehend more visual information in shorter times.

Playing games and being all the time on the watch out for every pixel on the
screen makes these muscles to work out and become stronger and faster.

Yep, it's just a workout.

~~~
humbledrone
Nope. FTA:

> The same thing happened when the test was switched to a similar task based
> on tonal differences, indicating the success of gamers wasn't simply the
> result of their focus on visual cues.

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Myrth
Why can't it be a combination of factors?

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humbledrone
I think that it probably is a combination of factors. However, I was
responding to your initial comment:

> "My guess is it's all about trained muscles [...]"

[all about] != [combination of factors]

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Deestan
Interesting and convincing. I would love to see similar studies for different
kinds of games.

For example, after playing Braid for 4 hours straight, I had trouble
performing normal day-to-day tasks naturally for about half an hour.

~~~
eru
A weaker version of Braid-syndrome can happen if you have a game with
quicksave/quickload and use it extensively.

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markbnine
_Both were shown a screen that had a set of randomly moving dots, and asked to
determine whether there was any coherent motion, meaning that, despite the
apparent randomness, the dots had a tendency to head in a single direction_

This article should have been titled, "Gamers make faster decisions than
nongamers at video games." Duh.

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wake_up_sticky
Maybe you should read the entire article.

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markbnine
Am I missing something? All the tests were based on interfacing with a screen.

~~~
saucetenuto
From the friendly article:

"The same thing happened when the test was switched to a similar task based on
tonal differences, indicating the success of gamers wasn't simply the result
of their focus on visual cues."

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AmberShah
It's sad that I first heard this was true when the whole high school shootings
were happening. The shooters were "trained" via video games to shoot for the
head, one shot, and then move on to the next target, whereas a novice would
keep shooting all over multiple times to make sure they got it right. So, it
backs up the claim above, and yet, still doesn't make me want to let me kids
play video games.

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chc
Boy Scouts would teach knife skills and knot-tying — both useful skills for
kidnapping and torture — but I doubt you have similar misgivings about that.
Making somebody competent at efficiency and rational decision-making under
pressure doesn't make them a killer. Video games are not strongly correlated
with homicide, that one data point 12 years ago notwithstanding.

(Incidentally, I'm not the downvote. I don't think your logic works here, but
it's an interesting correlation.)

