WEBVTT - From the Vault: Better Living Through Tetris 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.480 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:10.760 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.520 Once again we were venturing down into the vault, this 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.680 time to come back on part two of the episode 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.599 that we started last Saturday, that we re ran from December. 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:23.079 This is going to be an episode that aired on 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:28.560 December three called Better Living through Tetris. More colored blocks, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.560 rushing out of the void of the vault to Healless 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:33.960 which do you think is the most healing of the 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.720 Tetris shapes? Is it? Is it the L Is it 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.520 the T? No? No, it's the straight line of four blocks, 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.360 because that's the that's the money block. That's the one 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.440 that allows you to get that that wonderful four rows 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.960 eliminated at one time, catching money. All Right, without further ado, 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:57.320 let's dive in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:06.080 from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.000 Step to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.800 and I am General McCormick, and today's episode is part 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.400 two of a two part episode about the science of Tetris, 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.120 really the science of Tetris, but also the history and 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:22.600 philosophy of Tetris, because, as I said in the last episode, 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.440 I have a very very strong intuition that Tetris is 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.640 not just an invented artifact of the work of human 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.959 hands and human minds, but is somehow a natural, fundamental 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:40.000 outgrowth of the phantasmagorical blood magic of the universe. It 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.200 comes from the cosmos itself. It's not just something we made. 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.360 It was here and in nineteen eighty four, the creator 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:53.160 of Tetris, Alexei Pajutnov, discovered it. I like that the 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.880 idea of discovering Tetris as this uh, this sort of 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:03.000 dimension of of mathematical affection. Yeah, underlying reality totally. And 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.200 in the last episode we talked a little bit about that, 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.160 about where Tetris came from and its influences, and then 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.480 about the Tetris effect, this uh, this syndrome, this experience 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.079 commonly reported by Tetris players where they where it sort 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.120 of takes over their minds. They see Tetris in everything 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.520 throughout the world. They hallucinated, they dream about it, and 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.280 we talked about some possible explanations for that, as well 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:29.680 as how Tetris skills develop in the brain and the 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:34.440 interesting fact that that people who cannot form episodic memories 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:40.320 can still form hallucination recall for Tetris that counterintuitively, expert 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.280 Tetris players use less brain energy than novice Tetris players 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.320 at higher levels of play. So there's a lot that's 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:52.360 very fascinating and weird and mysterious about the game Tetris itself. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:54.880 But today we wanted to talk about how some of 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.320 this science of tetris, uh, how it works as a game, 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.960 and how Tetris can be used to solve problems in 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.320 the real world. Yeah, and a lot of this, uh. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.440 The first portion of this episode, a lot of it 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.520 relates to just why do we love it? So? Why 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.000 is it so satisfying to play tetris? Um and uh, 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.880 and the the the science behind this is it's a 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.080 lot more interesting than you might think it's it. It 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.560 goes pretty deep into just how we think and how 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.520 we process the world. Absolutely, So, if you haven't listened 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.320 to part one, go back listen to part one, uh first, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.960 and then come and join us again here where we 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:37.400 will continue the cosmic journey of Tetris and clear those 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:43.360 lines again and again and again. Alright, So why do 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.200 we love Tetris. Why don't we play it so much? 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:47.920 Why did it have such an impact to begin with? Well, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.360 we should back up and ask why we play any 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.680 game so much? Why do we love any game? I mean, 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.360 as we observed in the last episode, there there's a 0:03:55.440 --> 0:04:00.320 difference between a really good game and a non so 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.720 good game. And it's not just I mean, these days 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:04.640 a lot of people might refer to things because of 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.800 the complexity of games on newer generations and things like 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.760 graphics and story and you know, because you have these 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.680 action adventure games that are that are so complex and 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.240 all that. There's more so that you're immersing yourself in 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:22.040 an unreal world. Yeah yeah, yeah, So ignoring all that 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.120 and just getting back to the basics of simple types 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:30.240 of games and gameplay. Puzzle games, uh, playing Tetris versus 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.480 playing I don't know what's another early puzzle game, the 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:40.359 Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game on the which did really exist. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.679 Don't don't bother looking at it, You'll just get sad. Yeah, wanted, wanted? 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.279 Why are these games? So? Why don't we immerse ourselves? 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.680 And the how does this work? One idea that seems 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:55.280 pretty strongly supported is that very rewarding and enjoyable game 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.320 play and game mechanics come from this psychological process that's 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:05.880 been described under the term cognitive flow flow. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:10.159 at at heart, any good game is tapping into cognitive flow. 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.760 As Sean Baron broke down in a two thousand twelve 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.719 Gama Sutra article, it breaks down as follows and Tetris 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.960 boils this down perfectly to a highly concentrated mental gaming experience. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.359 You have concrete goals and manageable rules, plus goals that 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:32.640 fit player capabilities, plus clear and timely feedback, plus an 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.760 elimination of distractions, and this equals cognitive flow. Yeah. So 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.000 it's a game essentially where you understand how to play, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.279 you can play, you have the skill. It's yet it's 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.400 challenging enough that it's not boring. You're constantly getting feedback 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.880 on how well you're doing, and there's not extraneous stuff 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:58.000 going on. It's just perfect focus, zeroing in on a 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.640 perfect brain consuming to ask that is just challenging enough 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.640 to always keep you engaged. Yeah. Now, that's not to 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.280 say that cognitive flow is just a result of gaming. 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:12.960 It in our daily lives, be it in your work. 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.920 If you're lucky or you know, in your hobbies or 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.279 even in just random chores that you have down, you know, 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.719 skill wise. Um in the term itself comes from psychologist Mihi. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.800 Chick sent me high, the Hungarian psychology professor who pioneered 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.279 the study of cognitive flow. I like this guy's research. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:34.760 I've read about it before, and it's interesting to me 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.320 because this is what people would, I think often call 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:41.880 positive psychology. So much of what is studied in psychology 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:47.600 or psychiatry deals with people who are having less than 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.640 optimal experiences. And this is an attempt to study, well, 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.840 what's going on when humans are just really at their 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:59.120 peak mental experience, when they're feeling great, when things are 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.599 going well inside their heads, what's happening there? And and 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.280 the thing he identified is that a key to a 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.040 sort of happy existence or a happy experience is this 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.800 process of flow. Yeah, indeed, and uh, you know, it's 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.640 interesting looking back to the previous episode where the stick 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.080 gold study started off and ended up getting into the 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.320 tetris area by considering people who engaged in um in 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.560 rock climbing, and then they would perceive rock climbing later. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:32.080 Uh And and overall his study was about looking at 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.640 people who engage in novel physical or mental activities for 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.320 extended periods of time and how they often experienced on 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.600 the hallucinatory replay of the activities. And with the check 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.040 semi hi, we see rock climbing come up again because 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.080 as an avid rock climber, that's where he first took 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.840 note of this special feeling in his own experience that 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.920 he got while inching his way up a challenging rock face. 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.640 He began thinking about it in terms of his psychology studies, 0:07:58.400 --> 0:07:59.920 and he laid it out pretty much as we've been 0:07:59.920 --> 0:08:03.040 to discussing that flow is about having set goals, having 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.120 uh a self contained universe. So you especially see this 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.880 in gaming right where they're something like Tetris. The rules, 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.240 the space, it's all pretty well defined. There's there's less ambiguity, 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.880 you get immediate feedback if you're doing it right. Contains 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.560 a manageable challenge. It's hard, but you can do it, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.200 a sense of control over the situation, at least until 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.480 you reach the upper levels UH, and you're completely involved 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:31.000 in what you're doing, and so this results in a 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:36.560 sense of ecstasy UM, great interclarity, a confidence that what 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:38.440 you're doing is doable, and then you have the skills 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.480 to tackle it, a sense of serenity, a sense of timelessness, 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.840 and intrinsic motivation to keep going. It becomes fun in itself. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.720 I mean, there's no reason you have to play a tetris. 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:55.320 You know, nobody, nobody's giving you tangible rewards or punishments 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.200 based on how many lines you clear. But it becomes 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:02.439 intrinsically motivating. There's something about the activity itself that's pleasing 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.600 enough that you have to go on. And it shuts 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.360 down the chatter and your brain. It shuts down that 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.360 default mode network, all those little voices and the that 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.920 are worrying about the past or the future. It all 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:18.480 goes dull as your brain, uh tackles the problem at hand, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.840 be it climbing a rock, working on an article, mowing 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.240 the yard, or playing tetris. Yeah, totally. So. If you 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.280 look at all of the conditions that must be present 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.600 to create the optimal sense of flow, I think Tetris 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.199 is almost perfectly designed to satisfy them. Like it's hard 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:40.480 to think of a cleaner distillation of exactly what those 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:45.720 conditions are. The clear goals, stack them, clear lines, manageable rules, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.120 it's absolutely clear what's going on in Tetris. Uh. Tetris 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.679 adjusts itself to your capabilities. So at the beginning it's easy. Uh. 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:56.920 If you are a very good player, you can move 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.400 up to higher difficulties pretty quickly. Uh. Gives you an 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.480 adjustment period. But the difficulty changes and tracks with you 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:06.640 as you play. You know, as you go up higher, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.160 you get farther, it gets harder and more challenging. There's 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.199 feedback and that you can like. The music is an 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.520 interesting feedback thing. In Texas, Texas, I say Texas again 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.360 in Tetris. As you keep stacking higher, I don't know 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.240 if you remember that, the music gets faster. It's letting 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.840 you know, okay. And of course there's very obvious visual feedback. 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.200 You know, you you can clearly see as you're getting 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.360 towards the ceiling of the screen, this is not what 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:38.800 you want. And what is there that's extraneous? I mean nothing, 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.000 it's it's all there. And uh, and of course it 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.880 works even better if you can just uh sort of 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.439 like put a black blanket over your head and tape 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.440 your eyes directly to the Tetris screen so that nobody 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.760 can walk in and say like, hey, there's a fire, 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.440 you need to evacuate the building. I mean, you just 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.000 you're there, You're in the zone. But there's some other 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.079 theories we've come across that that help explain exactly why 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:10.160 Tetris feels like such a perfect game for our brains. 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.240 And one of the ones I wanted to mention was 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.160 actually something I saw alluded to in a brain Craft 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.040 video some of our periscope followers. We were talking to 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.240 him last Friday, and we mentioned that we were going 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.080 to do this episode, and they said, oh, you should 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.520 watch the Braincraft videos. So there, I think they're PBS. Yeah, 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:30.839 PBS is behind it. I watched this as well. I 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.920 was entertaining. Yeah, and so they but they mentioned something 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.560 called the Zigarnic effect in reference to Tetris. So what 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.600 is the deal with this? Okay, so the Zigarnic effect 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.960 comes to us again. We looked to uh to Soviet thinking. 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:49.800 Here comes from Soviet to psychologist and psychiatrist Blooma Wolfovna Zagernick. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.680 She lived from nineteen hundred to nine, and she first 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:58.160 observed this in the nineteen twenties. Um and it basically 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.559 boils down to this. It's the it's the ecological tendency 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:06.040 for us to remember incomplete or interrupted tasks better than 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.560 complete ones. Um and Tetris. Of course, to tie that 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.480 in is a continuous stream of incomplete tasks, a constant 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.480 sense of achievement, but also a constantly unachieved finish. As 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.320 we mentioned in the previous episode, there's no hey, you 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:23.920 won screen and Tetris. It just keeps getting harder and 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.760 harder and harder until you perish. And of course it's 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.360 made up of lots of little individual incomplete tasks, right 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.840 because every time there's a gap in a row in Tetris, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.440 that's a little thing that there's a little flag in 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.200 your brain that says I need to go back and 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.520 fix that, and I'll get there eventually. So it's a 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:47.240 one huge incomplete task forever being incomplete, made up of 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.880 an infinite number of incomplete tasks. Uh. It's almost as 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.240 if this was in mind when it was designed. So 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.280 there's a gronic effect of course, plays into the typical 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.520 human drive to finish. What we started to see things 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.240 through to the finish, and the associative associated negative psychological 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.840 univocations of doing the opposite. You know, where you're you're 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.600 haunted by that model airplane you never finished, or that 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.360 novel that you have have completed, or you know, or 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:17.120 whatever chores around the house are, and god knows, when 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.200 you have a house, there's always some something that's not 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.080 quite finished about everything, and how those just continue to 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:29.400 stick in your mind? Um, there's a one explanation of 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.120 the Zigarnic effect that I found that I thought was pretty, uh, 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.720 pretty nice comes from Roy Baumbinster and Brad Bushman in 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.840 their two thousand eight textbooks Social Psychology and Human Nature. 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:44.120 They said, the Zigaronic effect is a tendency to experience automatic, 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.200 intrusive thoughts about a goal that one has pursued, but 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.280 the pursuit of which has been interrupted. That is, if 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.200 you start working toward a goal and fail to get their, 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.280 thoughts about that goal will keep popping into your mind 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.600 while you're doing other things, as if to remind you 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.040 to get back on track and finish reaching that goal. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.840 So not only is this something that uh is related 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.480 to the motivation we have to keep playing Tetris, but 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.840 it also might sort of explain what we talked about 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:15.800 in the previous episode. Because this mentions intrusive thoughts. I'll 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.160 see incomplete task. So in the last episode we talked 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.640 about the Tetris effect, where people experience dreams and hallucinations 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.520 about Tetris. If Tetris is never finished yet, it's always 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.480 this intrinsically motivating task that remains incomplete in the mind. 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.480 It kind of makes sense through this method that it 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.440 would keep jumping up into into your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.440 I think it plays nicely into into just trying to 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:45.200 figure out Tetris syndrome, the Tetris effect in general. And 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.720 then there's a broader lesson here though, that applies well 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:52.160 beyond games, and that is that students, be it a you, 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.920 be you an official student, or just somebody studying up 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.880 on something in your life, Uh, it pays to suspend 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.160 your studies, to take a break, to come back to 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.280 it and not try to wipe it all out in 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:06.240 one massive cramming session. Absolutely. I find this to be 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.600 extremely useful in my own work. So if I'm trying 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:14.360 to uh to think clearly about maybe an episode I'm 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.520 researching or something like that, I find it's way more 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:23.360 useful to uh to start on it before I end 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.440 work for one day. So if it's you know, five 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.360 thirty and I'm trying to quit work for the day. Um, 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.920 and I'm at the end of one task, it's better 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.480 to do ten percent of the next task and then 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:37.880 come back to it the next day. My thoughts about 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:39.880 it are going to be a lot clearer than to 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.320 break from work in between when tasks are concluded and 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:46.800 when the next one starts. Yeah, and generally, also if 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.280 you have some sleep in between, then you're you're geting 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.520 to consolidate those memories. All that working is working in 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.000 your favor as well. But also it's pointed out a 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.520 lot that if if the task is intimidating, just start it, 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.440 because if you just started, then you get to benefit 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.840 from the Zigarnic effect, because that's effect is going to 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.360 be in play to encourage you to come back and 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.880 work more on it. So beginnings are difficult, but begin 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.720 and then take a break and then come back. Yeah, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.120 this isn't gonna become the self help show, but but 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.840 try that one at least. Yeah, I highly advocate that strategy. 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:28.400 Get it started, it'll be easier. Another thing that is, Um, 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:30.800 I can't remember exactly where I came across this, but 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.600 I feel like it was in Uh, it was in 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.760 something that was linked to from that Braincraft video. But 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.600 but anyway, however, I came across this. Another thing that 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:45.240 I saw referenced UH with regard to Tetris is the 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.400 idea of epistemic action. And I had actually never heard 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.320 about this phenomena before, but I it turned out to 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:58.080 be pretty interesting. So in David Kirsch and Paul Maglio 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.880 published a paper in Cognitive Science. It's called on Distinguishing 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.920 Epistemic and Pragmatic Action, and Kirshi and Maglio make the 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.280 distinction between two different kinds of actions that a person 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:14.680 can perform. So you've got pragmatic action, and this is one. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.440 It's an external action that changes something in the external 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.400 world in furtherance of you achieving a goal. So if 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.399 you are stranded on a tiny island and starving, throwing 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.400 a rock at a seagull would be a pragmatic action 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.879 to unlock that seagull's delicious meat. Or you could make 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.439 a much smaller action. You could say, press a button 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.960 while playing Tetris to move a Tetris piece with the 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.040 goal of actually moving it to the spot where you 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.919 want to place it. You're just doing an action to 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.760 reach a goal. But then they distinguish this from a 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.760 different kind of action, a different kind of external action, 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.919 which is what they call epistemic action, and this is 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.120 making a change to the world in order to simplify 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:04.200 a problem solving task. So imagine you remember those Spot 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.800 the Difference puzzles and children's books, you know what I'm 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:08.919 talking about. They'll show you two pictures of a scene. 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.760 One's Mickey Mouse, you know, roller skating, and the next 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.600 one's Mickey Mouse roller skating, but the clock hands are 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.639 pointing to a different time and something like that. And 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.800 let's say you've got a children's workbook with with two 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.760 of these on different pages. Um, and what you do 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.040 is you tear out one of the pages and then 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.600 hold the pictures right next to each other. That would 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.600 be an epistemic action, because they're what you're doing is 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.040 an action that is really designed to change the nature 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:42.159 of a problem inside your head, to simplify the task. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:44.280 So when you see them next to each other, or 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.000 maybe you um lay them on top of each other 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:48.880 and hold it up to a light to see what's 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.199 different in the two pages, you're using external action to 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.480 reduce the mental complexity of a task. And they looked 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.880 at Tetris in this paper actually and pointed out how 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:07.320 experience Tetris players use epistemic action in Tetris, and this 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:09.800 is the way it works. You've got a block falling 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.920 down and you want to fit it in, and instead 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.760 of doing all the work of flipping the block around 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.639 in your head to see where it would fit, the 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:23.280 players flip it. They physically flip it, plus press the 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.880 button to flip it to offload some of the cognitive 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.640 work required to see where it would fit. So by 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.200 visually seeing exactly what the block looks like in all 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:39.080 its orientations, you can see, okay, here's exactly where it 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.080 would fit without having to flip it in your mind, 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.480 thus freeing up some mental resources to look at what's 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.120 the next block in the in the preview bar. So 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.280 so essentially it is using physical action to make mental 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.679 work easier. They say, epistemic action can be used to 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:00.639 reduce the memory involved in a mental computation UH, it 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.520 can be used to reduce the number of steps involved 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.800 in completing a mental computation, or it can be used 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:11.440 to reduce the probability of error in a mental computation. UM. 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.800 And so if you follow this idea, you can conclude 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.639 that when you play Tetris, it's again kind of a 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.080 perfect back and forth between body and mind. It creates 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:28.560 a constant, flowing, rapid feedback cooperation between mental problem solving 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.480 and then this external epistemic action. You use the body 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.280 to simple simplify a problem, You press the button, flip 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.760 the block, see where it would fit. Then you use 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.840 your mind to solve the problem. Then you use the 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.280 body again to execute the solution, and you just keep 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:48.000 going back and forth on repeat. Alright, so once again 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.840 we see a manner in which Tetris illuminates how our 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:57.320 brain works. And we've discussed they just almost perfect way 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.240 that Tetris captures our mind. So we're gonna take a 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.560 quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna explore 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:09.000 some some of the applications that that scientists have have explored, 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.960 have actually looked into, and some some very real possibilities 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.239 for Tetris as a as a treatment option for a 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:30.040 few different ailments. All Right, we're back. Okay, So Robert, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:34.600 we've talked about the Tetris cure. What can you cure 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:39.399 with tetris? Potentially at least because I was quite surprised 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.600 to see some of this research, but once I read 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.359 into it, it started to make a lot of sense 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.560 to me that you could potentially use tetris in maybe 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.679 in place of drugs or other types of therapies and 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.000 lots of scenarios. Yeah, because we've again just think back 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.920 to all the ways we've discussed in which tetris cat 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.080 is your mind, how it plays into two different modes 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:08.040 of memory. Um, how it Uh, it's got the skeleton 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:10.399 key to a deep part of your brain. Yeah, it's 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.200 it's involved in flow state. It really reminds me of 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.359 a lot of what one is setting to do a 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:17.600 set out to do with meditation and yoga to to 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.600 a certain extent, except you kind of have a leg 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:23.960 up on it by it being this fun, engaging game 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.520 as opposed to, uh, to something that takes a little 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.879 more deliberate mental or physical force. Okay, so let's imagine 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.000 that I am two packs a day kind of guy 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:39.680 and I'm trying to quit smoking. Can tetris help me? Potentially? Yes? 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.960 And which sounds crazy, especially anyone who has firsthand experience 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:48.239 with just how um, how powerful um that addiction can be. 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:51.159 But we do have some evidence to back it up. 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:53.479 This is a new study. This came out August two 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.400 thousand fifteen, and it's from a team of psychologists from 0:22:56.520 --> 0:23:00.760 from Plymouth University and Queensland University of Technology in Australia. 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.080 So this is how it how it went down. Uh, 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:09.200 they got together thirty one participants ages eighteen through seven, 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.720 and they were monitored for levels of craving and also 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:17.920 prompted seven times a day to report their cravings. Fifteen 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.560 of these individuals, so roughly half, were required to play 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:25.800 three minutes of Tetris before reporting their craving levels. So 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:27.800 it's kind of like you you have problems with different 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.119 cravings for different things, and somebody's gonna call you and 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:33.520 ask how you're doing with those cravings, but half of 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:36.160 the group get to play Tetris first before they're quiz. 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.600 Done it. So, cravings were recorded in thirty percent of occasions, 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:43.440 most commonly for food and non alcoholic drinks, which were 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.800 reported on nearly two thirds of those occasions. So of 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:52.680 the cravings were for drug related instances, and these included coffee, cigarettes, 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:56.479 wine and beer and spice, Yeah and spice. Sixteen percent 0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:00.959 were for miscellaneous activities such as sleeping, playing video games 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:06.960 to which I found interesting, socializing with friends, and sexual intercourse. 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:10.080 Food cravings tended to be slightly weaker than those in 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:13.879 other categories, But they claimed this is the first demonstration 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:17.600 that cognitive interference. Again, that's Tetris coming into your life, 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:22.400