Gaming Zone?

texchanchan writes "The BBC reports on a study by Dr. Costas Karageorghis, Brunel University (London): 'Recent research has suggested that it could be possible for a person immersed in a computer game to achieve the same level of meditative concentration' usually found in religious contemplatives and athletes in 'The Zone.' The article also quotes Dr. Karageorghis as saying 'It's a deeply pleasurable experience and it's something that's not very often experienced by people, rather it's something that often represents people's peak experiences in a particular area.'"

Comments

I know

[iq in binary]

Exactly what they're talking about. I remember playing CS and getting ripped on because everyone was absolutely sure I was using an aim/wall hack; when in reality it was me on a gaming "high" being able to loose a bullet with the hairs on someone's head within a half second of seeing an opponent.
It's rather hard to explain, but sometimes someone's level of interactivity with the game seems to put the person in their avatar's shoes. If this level of interactivity and concentration can be achieved in other environments (say, a car), you end up with prodigies and "l33ts".
Nothing new, really, just scientists noticing an ongoing phenomena.

Re:Drugs

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Some stimulant drugs (coke, meth) do seem to have a very similar though not identical effect, which is a big part of the reason people take them -- all the fun, no effort.

But yes, I strongly suspect that just about any activity you enjoy, practice a lot, and are good at can put you "in the zone." I've experienced it while running, while coding, while writing, while having sex (okay, lately I haven't been practicing that last as much as I'd like, though things do show signs of turning around soon ... ;) Hell, I used to sometimes get that same feeling back when I was an ER medic -- a busy night shift in the ER is no one's idea of fun, but there's a definite flow to it, a rhythm, and when you really get into it, when you're triaging mass casualty victims or running a code and everything is going just right, it's a powerful experience.

So?

[Dthoma]

Why shouldn't gamers be able to enter "The Zone" if sportsmen and the religious can? It's not as if gamers are greatly different, and gaming often requires the same sort of concentration as any sport; gamers do often have the same sort of traits as the religious, such as devotion (must login to Everquest/Planetarion/whatever soon!) and rote memorisation of concepts important to their game/religion (ooh, hit points, defence points, attack points!).

Re:Weird but unsurprising

[ThePilgrim]

I think it's down to a combination of concentration and pleasure.

If you are doing somthing you like, this is where my biology lets me down, you produce 'happy' chemicals, possabley also an adrenalin rush.

This probably combines with the chemicals produced by your brain when you concentrate to get you into 'the zone'.

How ever, just to piss on the BBC's bonfire. This artical looks more like a puff pice for one of their 'science' programs, as I'd hardly call a recerach sample of 2 with no control a representitve sample.

Nirvikalpa-Samadhi

[NortonDC]

A term used in Vedanta to refer to the highest, transcendent state of consciousness. It is the realization of "I am consciousness" which exists without the thought, "I am consciousness." In this experience there is selflessness, no-mind, non-duality, and the subject-object relationship momentarily disappears. It is the highest, samadhi-state of non-dual union with one's own consciousness.

I swear I had this experienced induced by a game of Wolf3D. The power failure in the middle of it was really disorienting.

quote source

High levels of focus and concentration...

[Cloudmark]

While I find the research quite interesting, as most of the posts on this thread have pointed out, this isn't particularly uncommon. Certain individuals have the ability to narrow-focus in the extreme when presented with the correct stimulus.

All of the individuals described (athletes, strongly religious people, and of course coders/gamers) are inclined towards extreme focus, high levels of motivation, and activities that lend themselves to those traits.

It would be interesting to see reseatch done to determine if there was any neurochemical basis for this type of hyper-focus. Do certain brains, when presented with a particular stimulus, produce certain chemicals/neurotransmitters that lead to this heightened awareness and performance?
Also, are there any side-effects? People have described elation, ecstacy, etc. Is this purely mental or is there a biological basis for it?