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Tetris Improves Your Brain
An anonymous reader writes "Playing Tetris increases the density of the cortex and improves the efficiency of some parts of the brain, according to researchers investigating video games and other complex spatial tasks." Unfortunately, storing a half million copies of the song negates any practical functional gains beyond loading your trunk very efficiently.
Playing Tetris actually gives you more brain to work with, says a new study to be published later this week.
So you're saying you had control groups of people that played other video games and Tetris showed a difference? Or a control group studying chess? I suspect the title of this article should be "Puzzles Improve Your Brain."
This, says the doctors who undertook the study, shows that focusing on a "challenging visuospatial task" like a videogame can actually alter the structure of the brain, not just increase brain activity.
So you're saying this is akin to jamming the square block in the square hole and the triangle block in the triangle hole? Or, really, any sort of two dimensional puzzles like the mazes on the back of tray mats at a restaurant? Or maybe even -- *gasp* -- any game portrayed on a 2D surface like a TV or computer screen?
The study, funded by Tetris' makers ...
I understand now.
The study's subjects, a group of adolescent girls, underwent MRI scans before and after a three-month Tetris practice period.
The pretty pictures wouldn't happen to be statistically erroneous now would they?
Don't get me wrong, I grew up on Tetris 2 and The New Tetris. They both still have massive replay value and really spurred me to look into polyomino based puzzles which had increased fame in the mid 1960s until everyone realized that they had little real world application (but they still show up in papers). Still, it lead me to a book by Martin Gardner who wrote Scientific American columns on Mathematical Games. If you remember those, I recommend this book. So something good came out of studying tile theory and Tetris for me but there's no evidence yet it did anything more for me than say playing Gauntlet on the NES would have.
My work here is dung.
Playing video games in general does this. All genres involve some form of problem solving...something television doesn't usually accommodate.
So you're saying this is akin to jamming the square block in the square hole and the triangle block in the triangle hole?
No, it's shoving the T-shaped block past other blocks into a T-shaped hole. Almost every Tetris game since Tetris Worlds (2001), including Tetris DS, has allowed for this strange move.
Tetris has music?
Quick, before it gets flagged.
Changes in synaptic connectivity are one way that learning occurs. It is interesting to see that even minor stimulation (in playing a game like tetris) can lead to observable changes, i.e., the hardware of the mind (aka the brain) can be re-modelled by the software being run (the 'program' or specific task being undertaken). One of the next questions is to begin to understand the rules governing how learning is represented. This will allow us to begin debugging the OS kernel that links brain and mind.
When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea
I used to play the original tetris on a 386. It was incredibly relaxing: When you activated the turbo button while tetris started, it calibrated its delay loop for sizzling 40 MHz. Then push it again to clock it down to 4.77 MHz and enjoy. You could spend a whole day playing it and achieve miracle high scores, all the while doing things, like spending a couple of minutes in the bathroom, making coffee in the kitchen, doing homework etc.
How I miss the turbo button...
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
There's been quite a bit of previous research done on Tetris, which has found that just about the only thing playing tetris improves is your ability to play tetris. The spatial expertise acquired while playing tetris is highly domain specific (eg. see VK Sims, RE Mayer (2002) ). In fact Tetris has so few measurable changes on behavior that it's often used as the control game for action video game research (eg. Green CS, Bavelier D. (2003)).
I don't know whether it applies broadly or just to this particular game, but I can state that Tetris had a profound impact on my wife's quality of life. She was born with brain damage from a lack of oxygen due to pregnancy complications. This left her epileptic and with extremely poor muscle control/coordination. She used to get made fun of in school because kids thought she was mentally retarded because she moved slowly and awkwardly (just the opposite, really -- she was the first woman to ever get a scholarship to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology). As a child, however, at the recommendation of her doctor, her parents encouraged her to play Tetris and other hand-eye-coordination / reaction time games a lot, something she continued all the way through college. The parts of her brain that affect motor control are still damaged, but EEGs now show that other parts of her brain have taken up the slack. You'd never know she used to have trouble with motor control.
Get out, or I'll have vice-president Agnew's headless body throw you out!"