According to a Finnish study, when we play Video Games together, our Brains Sync Up. The experiment was inspired by, of all things, a Top Gear episode
SOURCE: PC Gamer
What do you think of this blog? Write down at the COMMENT section below.
A study published by researchers at the University of Helsinki explores the EEG synchronization of persons playing a simple driving game in pairs. The results, of course, show that people's brainwaves synchronize while playing a cooperative racing game. The brains of the participants were activating in the same way they would during face-to-face interaction, and "inter-brain neural synchronization has been connected with empathy and collaboration" in such settings.
The study is somewhat small-scale (it studied 42 pairs of players), and while it does exhibit activity that supports a specific conclusion, it would be unreasonable to extrapolate this as solid proof. Having said that, it was also published in Neuropsychologia, a peer-reviewed and well-respected journal in the field of psychology.
Participants were physically separated in soundproof rooms and played a game "inspired by an episode of the British television series Top Gear (Churchward and Doyle, 2008), in which participants were tasked to drive double-deckered cars, with the person on top turning the steering wheel and the person on bottom operating the pedals." A simple videogame along these lines was created, and participants had to drive a car around a racing track as fast as they could, with one person on top turning the steering wheel and one person on bottom operating The tracks had obstacles to avoid, and there were four circuits that everyone drove in both roles.
Take my word for it: this study offers incredibly detailed information about the length and timing of button presses.
According to the study, "collaboration in the task was associated with higher synchrony in the alpha, beta, and gamma bands, when comparing synchrony between real pairs and performance-matched false pairs."
What this truly signifies is something that this study was not designed to answer.
"We were able to show that inter-brain phase synchronization can occur without the presence of the other person," explains one of the study's authors, doctorate researcher Valtteri Wikström. "This opens the door to further research into the role of this social brain process in online contact."
The study's broader context isn't so much about games as it is about the increased screen time that most of us now have, and the concerns about how this is affecting both us and, especially, younger generations who have grown up as digital natives. Because screens aren't going away, it's critical to understand what our brains are capable of during such interactions.
"If we can create interactive digital experiences that trigger underlying empathy pathways, we can achieve greater results.
"We can improve social interactions, well-being, and productivity online if we can develop interactive digital experiences that activate core mechanisms of empathy," says project manager Katri Saarikivi. I admire your enthusiasm!
Wikström believes that, in the end, these measurements of brain synchronization during online collaboration can be used to assess the 'quality' of social interaction, and that understanding how they function would enable software developers to build in this direction. That's a huge claim, and it goes way beyond what this study has actually proven.
It's amusing to consider this in the light of my own never-ending love affair with Rocket League. I mostly play competitive 3v3 with randoms and lurk around mid-Diamond. And in certain games, you and your teammates are simply on the same page: passing the ball around, covering for each other, and moving into the appropriate positions without any verbal communication. Sometimes none of you gel, and it's a disaster. This is obviously just my personal tale about an unrelated game, but you get the impression there's more to it. I've felt like I've'synced' with teammates more times than I can count in my lifetime of online gaming.
#Gaming #CoopGames #RocketLeague #TopGear
SOURCE: PC Gamer
What do you think of this blog? Write down at the COMMENT section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment