As humans, we can think about our own thinking. This is referred to as metacognition, and can provide great insight into game playing and life in general.
Game References
Dominion, Dungeons and Dragons, League of Legends, Magic, poker, Rear Window
Research References
Kreutzer, M. A., Leonard, C., Flavell, J. H., & Hagen, J. W. (1975). An interview study of children’s knowledge about memory. Monographs of the society for research in child development, 1-60.
This episode considers how best to learn and teach games. Are there particular techniques that enables people to learn games more quickly and efficiently, and that also results in a longer memory for those rules?
Game References
Fog of Love, Magic Maze, Mechs and Minions, Wingspan
Research References
Bloom, B. S. (1984). The 2 sigma problem: The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational researcher, 13(6), 4-16.
Haverty, L., & Blessing, S. (2007). What did that $2.5 million dollar ad buy us? Cognitive science goes to the super bowl. In D. S. McNamara & J. G. Trafton (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty–ninth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 347-352), Nashville, TN. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Khazan, O. (2018). The myth of learning styles: A popular theory that come people learn better visually or aurally keeps getting debunked. The Atlantic, April, 11.
Episode 28: From Novice to Expert in One Easy Step
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What happens, cognitively speaking, as we move from novice to expert in a game? The episode examines changes in memory and strategy as people gain experience not only games, but in other mental and physical activities as well.
Game References
Chess, Incan Gold
Research References
Bloom, B. S., & Sosniak, L. A. (1985). Developing talent in young people. Ballantine Books.
Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, 4, 55-81.
Chi, M. T., Feltovich, P. J., & Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive science, 5(2), 121-152.
Ericcson, K. A., Chase, W. G., & Faloon, S. (1980). Acquisition of a memory skill. Science, 208(4448), 1181-1182.
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
We examine the concept of levels of processing in this episode, that if you process an experience more deeply, you will remember it better. This comes into play in many aspects of gaming, for both players and designers.
Game References
Fog of Love, What Remains of Edith Finch, When I Dream
Research References
Craik, F. I., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 11(6), 671-684.
Episode 22: The Amazing Declarative to Procedural Transition
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Big changes happen in memory and knowledge as a person goes from beginner to expert. What does this entail for playing games? We take a close look at the two main types of memory, and how knowledge transitions between the two.
Game References
Marvel’s Spider-Man, Secret Cabal of Gaming
Research References
Anderson, J. R. (1996). ACT: A simple theory of complex cognition. American Psychologist, 51(4), 355.
Blessing, S. B. (1996). The use of prior knowledge in learning from examples (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/alumni_dissertations/11
Crossman, E. R. F. W. (1959). A theory of the acquisition of speed-skill∗. Ergonomics, 2(2), 153-166.
Newell, A., & Rosenbloom, P. S. (1981). Mechanisms of skill acquisition and the law of practice. Cognitive skills and their acquisition, 1(1981), 1-55.
I take a dive into Decrypto, comparing how clues are given in it versus in Codenames. Both the similarities and differences shed light into our cognitive processes and how items are stored in our memories. Spoiler alert: Bayes’ Theorem is discussed!
Virtual reality adds new dimensions to games. Psychology informs us of the issues on what goes on in a virtual environment. Join the discussion as we hit some of the big topics in this new way to play games. Also, Fireball Island addendum to ep 15!
Game References
Fireball Island, Playstation VR Worlds, Star Wars Battlefront I, The Void: Secrets of the Empire, Catan VR
Research References
Curtis, Michael K., Kayla Dawson, Kelli Jackson, Liat Litwin, Chase Meusel, Michael C. Dorneich, Stephen B. Gilbert, Jonathan Kelly, Richard Stone, & Eliot Winer. (2015, September). Mitigating Visually Induced Motion Sickness: A virtual hand-eye coordination task. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 1839-1843). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
Mori, M. (1970). The uncanny valley. Energy, 7(4), 33-35.
Some people have the idea that memory is like a tape recorder: if you remember it, that’s the way it happened. But, the data show that our memories can change quite a bit over the course of time. We discuss these experiments and what it means for games.
Game References
Aeon’s End, Assassins Creed, Clue, Dominion, Fury of Dracula, Letters from Whitechapel, Monikers, Outburst, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, Sleuth, The Stanley Parable, Taboo
Research References
Jacoby, L. L., Kelley, C., Brown, J., & Jasechko, J. (1989). Becoming famous overnight: Limits on the ability to avoid unconscious influences of the past. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 326-338.
Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 13(5), 585-589.
Roediger H. L.III, McDermott K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803–814. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.21.4.803
Episode 12: Cognitive Gamer Cognalysis: Horizon Zero Dawn
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This episode contains a deep dive into the cognitive ins and outs of the Playstation 4 game Horizon Zero Dawn. Much of the analysis, though, could be applied to most open-world games. We’ll consider narrative, skill transfer, and types of knowledge.
Game References
Assassin’s Creed, Horizon Zero Dawn, Player Unknown’s Battleground, Watch Dogs
Research References
Crossman, E. R. F. W. (1959) A theory of the acquisition of speed-skill. Ergonomics, 2, 153–166.
Gunzelmann, G., & Anderson, J. R. (2006). Location matters: Why target location impacts performance in orientation tasks. Memory & Cognition, 34(1), 41-59.
Newell, A. & Rosenbloom, P. S. (1981). Mechanisms of skill acquisition and the law of practice. In Anderson, J. R., editor, Cognitive skills and their acquisition, pages 1–55. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.
Seijts, G. H., & Latham, G. P. (2001). The effect of distal learning, outcome, and proximal goals on a moderately complex task. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22(3), 291-307.
Sweller J., Ayres P., Kalyuga S. (2011) The Goal-Free Effect. In: Cognitive Load Theory. Explorations in the Learning Sciences, Instructional Systems and Performance Technologies, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY
Episode 11: O Memory, Memory, Wherefore Art Thou Memory?
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Cognitive psychologists make a lot of distinctions with different types of memory. In this episode I provide an overview of the various ways that scientists have divvied up memory, and how each relates to how we play games.
Game References
Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Call of Duty, Clank!, Dominion, Kingdomino, Scrabble, Uno
Research References
Anderson, J. R. (2014). Rules of the mind. Psychology Press.
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. Psychology of learning and motivation, 8, 47-89.
Corkin, S. (1968). Acquisition of motor skill after bilateral medial temporal-lobe excision. Neuropsychologia, 6(3), 255-265.
Sperling, G. (1960). The information available in brief visual presentations. Psychological monographs: General and applied, 74(11), 1.
Tulving, E. (1986). Episodic and semantic memory: Where should we go from here?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 9(3), 573-577.