Study Compares Brain Activity In Games Against Humans and AI

Ars Technica covers research done using an fMRI machine to map brain activity game players. The study compares brain patterns in players competing against what they think are other humans against what they think is AI. It also goes into the differences in how games affect the male and female brain. "The human brain appears to try to parse the intentions of others by engaging its own decision-making process; in short, it appears to model another person's mind by seeing what it would do if it were in that other person's skull. The three areas of the brain that the authors identify are involved, in part, in making executive decisions for that brain's owner, in addition to evaluating other people's executive decisions. So, the fact that they're busier when a person thinks they're playing another human could also be interpreted as them focusing harder on an identical decision making process."

Comments

Re:Welcome to Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess your pet monkey traumatized you as a child, eh?

Re:Welcome to Ubuntu

[ta bu shi da yu]

I rather think it's the other way around: the GNAA traumatized their monkey.

With a notable exception.

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, the fact that they're busier when a person thinks they're playing another human could also be interpreted as them focusing harder on an identical decision making process."
See n00bs. The player won't need to focus harder on playing, but at telling them to STFU.
But n00bs might not be considered human.

Re:With a notable exception.

[arogier]

Its like playing chess against a child versus playing chess against a grandmaster. Of course you are going to play much harder against the kid. Loosing to the kid would be so much more embarrassing.

Re:With a notable exception.

[DavoMan]

But n00bs might not be considered human.

It's because the n00bs are the ones with the bots :P

Re:With a notable exception.

[Ceriel Nosforit]

You get used to embarrassing losses. Heck, I've even lost at arm wrestling to a girl after three shots of the Sauce and... Well the rest is a blur.

Also, the conclusion of this study applies to every situation where you try to guess the motivations of others. And I would like to add, it reveals a lot about the 'accuser' when they confront you on something they think motivated you. Say for example Bob consoles Alice after her breakup with her BFF Jill, at which point Cockead C accuses Bob of trying to get into Alice's pants. This shows that Cockhead C has assumed that is what motivates B, since that is what C would have done. Provided that B isn't shocked for having been found out, his motivation being something else, he now knows that C is a terrible person.

Re:With a notable exception.

[kalirion]

So every time you accuse Nigerian Princess Amufu of trying to scam you out of your savings, that shows you to be a phisher at heart?

Re:With a notable exception.

[Dextrously]

It's only an assumption if there is no evidence to base the decision off of. If "Cockhead C" knows that Bob has a history of such behavior, then your point is moot. This has been more cleverly quoted as "Assume makes and ass out of u and me".

Re:With a notable exception.

[orclevegam]

And I would like to add, it reveals a lot about the 'accuser' when they confront you on something they think motivated you. Say for example Bob consoles Alice after her breakup with her BFF Jill, at which point Cockead C accuses Bob of trying to get into Alice's pants. This shows that Cockhead C has assumed that is what motivates B, since that is what C would have done. Provided that B isn't shocked for having been found out, his motivation being something else, he now knows that C is a terrible person.

Or that C believes B to be a terrible person. All that it really shows is that C has some reason to believe that B is motivated by wanting to have sex with A, and that C has the capacity (read experience) to be able to conceive of someone motivated as such. It's possible to be able to conceive of someone being motivated by something without actually being motivated as such yourself.

Dire Wolves

[Anonymous Coward]

When battling dire wolves, it is advantageous to think what they might do. It's not surprising that we have this ability, and apply it to what an idiot ahead of us on the freeway might do.

Re:Dire Wolves

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy. I just loadout my Marauder with ferro-fibrous armor, 3 PPCs and a lot of heatsinks. With its higher speed, it becomes more than a match for any Dire Wolf.

Re:Dire Wolves

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont know whats sadder, someone posting that or me understanding it.

Re:Dire Wolves

[aliquis]

Please tell us.

http://www.camospecs.com/Miniature.asp?ID=3568
http://www.camospecs.com/Miniature.asp?ID=1508

?

Could have chosen a better game

[falckon]

I think it's interesting that they chose the Prisoner's Dilemma for the game - a 2 choice discrete turn game. While not everyone knows the algorithms computers use for such games, people generally consider computers to be quite good at turn-by-turn games (like chess) and should be regarded as more formidable opponents. Not to mention playing a computer at this game should provoke our minds to attempt to decipher the pattern if we believe we are playing a computer so that we can beat it.

But the main reason I find it interesting is that it is very easy to get into an always defect loop. If you opponent has been defecting every turn, what incentive is there for you to defect? In this sense playing a human is an almost random process as to when to stop defecting, and when you do you will most likely lose the turn anyways. If I were playing a human I would think less about my opponents thoughts and fall into a tit-for-tat play style (repeating the last move), starting cooperatively.

I think it would be more interesting to see the effect of thinking you are playing a computer vs a human in a game with more information. For example, in chess you may leave a piece open when playing a human if you believe your opponent will not see it given the large number of possible moves, whereas with a computer you know at least every immediate move will be considered.

Re:Could have chosen a better game

[artor3]

I recall reading years ago that one of the most simple, common, and effective Prisoner Dilemma strategies, used by both humans and computers, was "tit for tat with random forgiveness". Basically, start by cooperating, then always repeat the other player's last move, except sometimes cooperate even if they defected last move. It doesn't really matter whether your playing with a computer or a human. The rules are simple enough to negate the ability of the computer to consider all possible moves (there are only two!), and the interaction is so limited as to negate the advantage humans normally have in reading each other. Heck, it would probably be impossible to determine whether it was a computer or a human you were playing with.

I can't help but wonder why they chose such a simple game. Maybe they wanted something non-competitive?

Re:Could have chosen a better game

[dangle]

I think the investigators had to choose the game based on the fMRI technique they chose to use. fMRI studies require multiple trials of similar mental activities from multiple subjects, then an attempt is made to identify a signal emerging from the averaged noise of the multiple subjects and trials. Since subjects have to be lying still in the MRI machine during the study, the complexity of gameplay is limited. PD was probably chosen partly because of this limitation.

Re:Could have chosen a better game

[junglee_iitk]

Basically, start by cooperating, then always repeat the other player's last move, except sometimes cooperate even if they defected last move.

I know this. My ex drew me crazy with this.

Damn bitch!

Re:Could have chosen a better game

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what I thought when I read the OP to this previous comment.

Re:Could have chosen a better game

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but wonder why they chose such a simple game. Maybe they wanted something non-competitive?

I would guess that it's because it had to be played while the subject was inside an MRI machine and couldn't be moving. Maybe they were given a button in each hand to decide to cooperate/not, and could be told orally what the opponent did. Simple and low-budget.

Re:Could have chosen a better game

[Anonymous Coward]

The article makes it sound like their computer's strategy was just, "random." Bad procedure to begin with; consider the Milgram shock experiments; the responses were kept standard, even though they were simulated.

Further, if I knew I was playing a computer, I'd have the "always random" possibility in mind right off the bat; after 10-20 shots with no discernible pattern, I MIGHT go into overdrive attempting to analyze it, but more likely, I'd just start giving random answers myself -- or, now that I'm actually thinking about it, I'd probably just start repeating myself ad infinitum to see if the responses normalized. If I thought I was playing a human, my (in this case mistaken) assumption would be that there was a motivation at work, and that there would be a human-resolvable pattern to discover; it would take much longer for me to "give up" on the simulation.

Yup, gender bias

[Zerth]

Where do the sex differences come in? It turns out that, if you bin the data based on sex and then perform a similar subtraction, male brains seem to be more active than their female peers, which the authors interpret in light of the female gender's reputation for being more empathetic.

.

If females were more empathic, you'd think their brain might be more focused on what the other person was thinking.

Sounds to me more like the female subjects didn't care and just weren't trying.

Re:Yup, gender bias

[plasmacutter]

Where do the sex differences come in? It turns out that, if you bin the data based on sex and then perform a similar subtraction, male brains seem to be more active than their female peers, which the authors interpret in light of the female gender's reputation for being more empathetic.

.

If females were more empathic, you'd think their brain might be more focused on what the other person was thinking.

Sounds to me more like the female subjects didn't care and just weren't trying.

I remember seeing documentaries on problem solving, and people who tend to solve problems more efficiently tend to show less neural activity when faced with a problem.

The increased activity in male brains indicates more second-guessing, and possibly more error.

Empathy is a very powerful tool in guessing the potential responses of others correctly.

Re:Yup, gender bias

[McGiraf]

You thougth too much about his post and double guessed wrong.

Typical male. :)

and i cant get into your think head

[Anonymous Coward]

haha your head is too small and too thick therefore i do not want to play a game with you

Computers model behaviour too

[Shrike82]

Modelling your opponents behaviour is something game AI programmers have done for some time. I studied AI for Games at University, and artificial players designed to be truely competitive (rather than for commercial games where they have to merely be challenging) usually attempt to model their opponents behaviour. In turn-based games many AI players choose moves through forecasting the future based on what they guess their oppponent will do. So in relation to the article I guess that means humans modelling AI modelling humans, and so on...

Re:But how do Australians do it?

[GreenTech11]

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Oh man, boring

[Lord Lode]

They chose prisoner's dilemma as game, instead of a first person shooter! I mean, PC gaming doesn't really make me think about things simpler than tic-tac-toe. I thought this was going to be about playing versus a bot or a human in a FPS game, which would have been much more interesting. There you really place yourself in the mind of the opponent: "he's heading towards the center of deck 16, he'll probably jump down and take the shield belt there now", or the psychology of someone who keeps dying, or who just got a killing spree. Or if it's bots: "yep, he's following that same preprogrammed path again". Probably the results of the MRI scans will be similar.

Re:Oh man, boring

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I was hoping for something more FPS like too.
This doesn't seem interesting or informative at all with such a simple and narrow scope.
An FPS or platform fighter would be magnitudes more interesting, maybe then we can get some MRI readings of yomi* in action and see how some people seem to read minds.
 
*Yomi is roughly 'knowing the mind of your opponent' sirlin.net has some great articles about it.

Re:Oh man, boring

[Lord Lode]

And I've been thinking that RTS would also be very interesting, there is even a more huge difference between a human opponent and a computer opponent: with a computer opponent you abuse his AI (e.g. building walls because the PC is so dumb to attack walls with his ranged units instead of your gatherers), while against a human opponent your tactic is really dependent on who it is :)

Re:Oh man, boring

[Sigma 7]

with a computer opponent you abuse his AI (e.g. building walls because the PC is so dumb to attack walls with his ranged units instead of your gatherers),

Most modern RTS games don't have problems like that - either they did away with walls, the AI knows how to react to walls, or the game doesn't allow placing walls in the abusive fashion. Also, AIs that are vulnerable to those tactics aren't that well written, especially under modern standards.

Examples of what I'm looking for include Warcraft III, Rise of Nations, and Age of Empires III. I'm sure you can abuse the skirmish AI in those games, but there's no "obvious" means to do so.

Re:Welcome to Ubuntu

[DavoMan]

Wow. Good-guy spam. Don't see that every day.

Re:Uhh..

[aliquis]

I agree, or well, I'm not drunk, but I would write better than that even if I was drunk!

"Study Compares Brain Activity In Games Against Humans and AI"

"The study compares brain patterns in players competing against what they think are other humans against what they think is AI."

"So, the fact that they're busier when a person thinks they're playing another human could also be interpreted as them focusing harder on an identical decision making process."

Maybe it's something all AI people have in common. I failed my AI classes because, well, I never bought the book and I'm lazy, but also because my AI teacher was an italian lady whose english grammar and speech left much to which for. Add the fact that our native language was swedish and so english hearing comprehension may not have been that great + lack of decent study material from the class (OH sheet copies with reminders for her ..) + she never wrote anything on the white board at all.

Usually I spent my days on IRC, slept and ate too little and took a nap after listening to her bad english for 5-10 minutes, but it's still that bitch fault!

(I've passed it nowadays..)