The merits of studying video games and the effects they have on our brains
http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/3/5868897/video-game-study-game-transfer-phenomena-human-brain-effects
A great video game, like any worthwhile piece of art, will stick with you. When you're playing it, nothing can pull you away; when you're not playing it, you can't think about anything else. The game will embed itself in your subconscious, so much so that you'll start to have literal visions of it: Gems on a Guitar Hero note highway scroll by your eyes as you listen to music; a Mass Effect dialogue wheel pops up during a conversation with a friend; while driving, you imagine running over pedestrians à la Grand Theft Auto.
Some people know this as the "Tetris effect," but regardless of familiarity, many find the episodes startling and even frightening. Did I just see what I think I saw? Is this normal? Am I in too deep? Should I see a doctor?
In recent years, scientists have begun to study this curiosity of human perception, including Angelica Ortiz de Gortari, a doctoral researcher at Nottingham Trent University in Nottingham, U.K. She has spent more than four years researching what she calls "game transfer phenomena" (GTP), which she defines as "the transfer of video game experiences into the real world."
Ortiz de Gortari and a colleague, psychologist Mark D. Griffiths, published a paper earlier this year called "Altered Visual Perception in Game Transfer Phenomena: An Empirical Self-Report Study." The authors scraped 54 online forums for hundreds of anecdotes from players about the lingering effects of gaming — effects like the ones mentioned above. Griffiths and Ortiz de Gortari came to the following conclusion: "Intensive playing can result in misperceptions and visual distortions of real-life objects and environments."
"Many of these experiences are bizarre. If you tell to someone [who doesn't] play video games that you are seeing health bars, probably they think that you are crazy, or that you are addicted to the game," Ortiz de Gortari pointed out.
The next step in studying GTP is to find out how common it is among the gaming audience; figure out if particular types of games are more likely to induce it; and determine if it's problematic in any way. Ortiz de Gortari added that with games becoming more realistic and immersive every year, it's vital that we study what they're doing to us. By doing that, we'll learn about the effects video games have on our brains, and we may also gain a better understanding of how our brains work.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/3/5868897/video-game-study-game-transfer-phenomena-human-brain-effects
A great video game, like any worthwhile piece of art, will stick with you. When you're playing it, nothing can pull you away; when you're not playing it, you can't think about anything else. The game will embed itself in your subconscious, so much so that you'll start to have literal visions of it: Gems on a Guitar Hero note highway scroll by your eyes as you listen to music; a Mass Effect dialogue wheel pops up during a conversation with a friend; while driving, you imagine running over pedestrians à la Grand Theft Auto.
Some people know this as the "Tetris effect," but regardless of familiarity, many find the episodes startling and even frightening. Did I just see what I think I saw? Is this normal? Am I in too deep? Should I see a doctor?
In recent years, scientists have begun to study this curiosity of human perception, including Angelica Ortiz de Gortari, a doctoral researcher at Nottingham Trent University in Nottingham, U.K. She has spent more than four years researching what she calls "game transfer phenomena" (GTP), which she defines as "the transfer of video game experiences into the real world."
Ortiz de Gortari and a colleague, psychologist Mark D. Griffiths, published a paper earlier this year called "Altered Visual Perception in Game Transfer Phenomena: An Empirical Self-Report Study." The authors scraped 54 online forums for hundreds of anecdotes from players about the lingering effects of gaming — effects like the ones mentioned above. Griffiths and Ortiz de Gortari came to the following conclusion: "Intensive playing can result in misperceptions and visual distortions of real-life objects and environments."
"Many of these experiences are bizarre. If you tell to someone [who doesn't] play video games that you are seeing health bars, probably they think that you are crazy, or that you are addicted to the game," Ortiz de Gortari pointed out.
The next step in studying GTP is to find out how common it is among the gaming audience; figure out if particular types of games are more likely to induce it; and determine if it's problematic in any way. Ortiz de Gortari added that with games becoming more realistic and immersive every year, it's vital that we study what they're doing to us. By doing that, we'll learn about the effects video games have on our brains, and we may also gain a better understanding of how our brains work.
