Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Once again we were venturing down into the vault, this
Speaker 1: time to come back on part two of the episode
Speaker 1: that we started last Saturday, that we re ran from December.
Speaker 1: This is going to be an episode that aired on
Speaker 1: December three called Better Living through Tetris. More colored blocks,
Speaker 1: rushing out of the void of the vault to Healless
Speaker 1: which do you think is the most healing of the
Speaker 1: Tetris shapes? Is it? Is it the L Is it
Speaker 1: the T? No? No, it's the straight line of four blocks,
Speaker 1: because that's the that's the money block. That's the one
Speaker 1: that allows you to get that that wonderful four rows
Speaker 1: eliminated at one time, catching money. All Right, without further ado,
Speaker 1: let's dive in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to
Speaker 1: Step to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I am General McCormick, and today's episode is part
Speaker 1: two of a two part episode about the science of Tetris,
Speaker 1: really the science of Tetris, but also the history and
Speaker 1: philosophy of Tetris, because, as I said in the last episode,
Speaker 1: I have a very very strong intuition that Tetris is
Speaker 1: not just an invented artifact of the work of human
Speaker 1: hands and human minds, but is somehow a natural, fundamental
Speaker 1: outgrowth of the phantasmagorical blood magic of the universe. It
Speaker 1: comes from the cosmos itself. It's not just something we made.
Speaker 1: It was here and in nineteen eighty four, the creator
Speaker 1: of Tetris, Alexei Pajutnov, discovered it. I like that the
Speaker 1: idea of discovering Tetris as this uh, this sort of
Speaker 1: dimension of of mathematical affection. Yeah, underlying reality totally. And
Speaker 1: in the last episode we talked a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: about where Tetris came from and its influences, and then
Speaker 1: about the Tetris effect, this uh, this syndrome, this experience
Speaker 1: commonly reported by Tetris players where they where it sort
Speaker 1: of takes over their minds. They see Tetris in everything
Speaker 1: throughout the world. They hallucinated, they dream about it, and
Speaker 1: we talked about some possible explanations for that, as well
Speaker 1: as how Tetris skills develop in the brain and the
Speaker 1: interesting fact that that people who cannot form episodic memories
Speaker 1: can still form hallucination recall for Tetris that counterintuitively, expert
Speaker 1: Tetris players use less brain energy than novice Tetris players
Speaker 1: at higher levels of play. So there's a lot that's
Speaker 1: very fascinating and weird and mysterious about the game Tetris itself.
Speaker 1: But today we wanted to talk about how some of
Speaker 1: this science of tetris, uh, how it works as a game,
Speaker 1: and how Tetris can be used to solve problems in
Speaker 1: the real world. Yeah, and a lot of this, uh.
Speaker 1: The first portion of this episode, a lot of it
Speaker 1: relates to just why do we love it? So? Why
Speaker 1: is it so satisfying to play tetris? Um and uh,
Speaker 1: and the the the science behind this is it's a
Speaker 1: lot more interesting than you might think it's it. It
Speaker 1: goes pretty deep into just how we think and how
Speaker 1: we process the world. Absolutely, So, if you haven't listened
Speaker 1: to part one, go back listen to part one, uh first,
Speaker 1: and then come and join us again here where we
Speaker 1: will continue the cosmic journey of Tetris and clear those
Speaker 1: lines again and again and again. Alright, So why do
Speaker 1: we love Tetris. Why don't we play it so much?
Speaker 1: Why did it have such an impact to begin with? Well,
Speaker 1: we should back up and ask why we play any
Speaker 1: game so much? Why do we love any game? I mean,
Speaker 1: as we observed in the last episode, there there's a
Speaker 1: difference between a really good game and a non so
Speaker 1: good game. And it's not just I mean, these days
Speaker 1: a lot of people might refer to things because of
Speaker 1: the complexity of games on newer generations and things like
Speaker 1: graphics and story and you know, because you have these
Speaker 1: action adventure games that are that are so complex and
Speaker 1: all that. There's more so that you're immersing yourself in
Speaker 1: an unreal world. Yeah yeah, yeah, So ignoring all that
Speaker 1: and just getting back to the basics of simple types
Speaker 1: of games and gameplay. Puzzle games, uh, playing Tetris versus
Speaker 1: playing I don't know what's another early puzzle game, the
Speaker 1: Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game on the which did really exist.
Speaker 1: Don't don't bother looking at it, You'll just get sad. Yeah, wanted, wanted?
Speaker 1: Why are these games? So? Why don't we immerse ourselves?
Speaker 1: And the how does this work? One idea that seems
Speaker 1: pretty strongly supported is that very rewarding and enjoyable game
Speaker 1: play and game mechanics come from this psychological process that's
Speaker 1: been described under the term cognitive flow flow. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at at heart, any good game is tapping into cognitive flow.
Speaker 1: As Sean Baron broke down in a two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: Gama Sutra article, it breaks down as follows and Tetris
Speaker 1: boils this down perfectly to a highly concentrated mental gaming experience.
Speaker 1: You have concrete goals and manageable rules, plus goals that
Speaker 1: fit player capabilities, plus clear and timely feedback, plus an
Speaker 1: elimination of distractions, and this equals cognitive flow. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's a game essentially where you understand how to play,
Speaker 1: you can play, you have the skill. It's yet it's
Speaker 1: challenging enough that it's not boring. You're constantly getting feedback
Speaker 1: on how well you're doing, and there's not extraneous stuff
Speaker 1: going on. It's just perfect focus, zeroing in on a
Speaker 1: perfect brain consuming to ask that is just challenging enough
Speaker 1: to always keep you engaged. Yeah. Now, that's not to
Speaker 1: say that cognitive flow is just a result of gaming.
Speaker 1: It in our daily lives, be it in your work.
Speaker 1: If you're lucky or you know, in your hobbies or
Speaker 1: even in just random chores that you have down, you know,
Speaker 1: skill wise. Um in the term itself comes from psychologist Mihi.
Speaker 1: Chick sent me high, the Hungarian psychology professor who pioneered
Speaker 1: the study of cognitive flow. I like this guy's research.
Speaker 1: I've read about it before, and it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: because this is what people would, I think often call
Speaker 1: positive psychology. So much of what is studied in psychology
Speaker 1: or psychiatry deals with people who are having less than
Speaker 1: optimal experiences. And this is an attempt to study, well,
Speaker 1: what's going on when humans are just really at their
Speaker 1: peak mental experience, when they're feeling great, when things are
Speaker 1: going well inside their heads, what's happening there? And and
Speaker 1: the thing he identified is that a key to a
Speaker 1: sort of happy existence or a happy experience is this
Speaker 1: process of flow. Yeah, indeed, and uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting looking back to the previous episode where the stick
Speaker 1: gold study started off and ended up getting into the
Speaker 1: tetris area by considering people who engaged in um in
Speaker 1: rock climbing, and then they would perceive rock climbing later.
Speaker 1: Uh And and overall his study was about looking at
Speaker 1: people who engage in novel physical or mental activities for
Speaker 1: extended periods of time and how they often experienced on
Speaker 1: the hallucinatory replay of the activities. And with the check
Speaker 1: semi hi, we see rock climbing come up again because
Speaker 1: as an avid rock climber, that's where he first took
Speaker 1: note of this special feeling in his own experience that
Speaker 1: he got while inching his way up a challenging rock face.
Speaker 1: He began thinking about it in terms of his psychology studies,
Speaker 1: and he laid it out pretty much as we've been
Speaker 1: to discussing that flow is about having set goals, having
Speaker 1: uh a self contained universe. So you especially see this
Speaker 1: in gaming right where they're something like Tetris. The rules,
Speaker 1: the space, it's all pretty well defined. There's there's less ambiguity,
Speaker 1: you get immediate feedback if you're doing it right. Contains
Speaker 1: a manageable challenge. It's hard, but you can do it,
Speaker 1: a sense of control over the situation, at least until
Speaker 1: you reach the upper levels UH, and you're completely involved
Speaker 1: in what you're doing, and so this results in a
Speaker 1: sense of ecstasy UM, great interclarity, a confidence that what
Speaker 1: you're doing is doable, and then you have the skills
Speaker 1: to tackle it, a sense of serenity, a sense of timelessness,
Speaker 1: and intrinsic motivation to keep going. It becomes fun in itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no reason you have to play a tetris.
Speaker 1: You know, nobody, nobody's giving you tangible rewards or punishments
Speaker 1: based on how many lines you clear. But it becomes
Speaker 1: intrinsically motivating. There's something about the activity itself that's pleasing
Speaker 1: enough that you have to go on. And it shuts
Speaker 1: down the chatter and your brain. It shuts down that
Speaker 1: default mode network, all those little voices and the that
Speaker 1: are worrying about the past or the future. It all
Speaker 1: goes dull as your brain, uh tackles the problem at hand,
Speaker 1: be it climbing a rock, working on an article, mowing
Speaker 1: the yard, or playing tetris. Yeah, totally. So. If you
Speaker 1: look at all of the conditions that must be present
Speaker 1: to create the optimal sense of flow, I think Tetris
Speaker 1: is almost perfectly designed to satisfy them. Like it's hard
Speaker 1: to think of a cleaner distillation of exactly what those
Speaker 1: conditions are. The clear goals, stack them, clear lines, manageable rules,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely clear what's going on in Tetris. Uh. Tetris
Speaker 1: adjusts itself to your capabilities. So at the beginning it's easy. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you are a very good player, you can move
Speaker 1: up to higher difficulties pretty quickly. Uh. Gives you an
Speaker 1: adjustment period. But the difficulty changes and tracks with you
Speaker 1: as you play. You know, as you go up higher,
Speaker 1: you get farther, it gets harder and more challenging. There's
Speaker 1: feedback and that you can like. The music is an
Speaker 1: interesting feedback thing. In Texas, Texas, I say Texas again
Speaker 1: in Tetris. As you keep stacking higher, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember that, the music gets faster. It's letting
Speaker 1: you know, okay. And of course there's very obvious visual feedback.
Speaker 1: You know, you you can clearly see as you're getting
Speaker 1: towards the ceiling of the screen, this is not what
Speaker 1: you want. And what is there that's extraneous? I mean nothing,
Speaker 1: it's it's all there. And uh, and of course it
Speaker 1: works even better if you can just uh sort of
Speaker 1: like put a black blanket over your head and tape
Speaker 1: your eyes directly to the Tetris screen so that nobody
Speaker 1: can walk in and say like, hey, there's a fire,
Speaker 1: you need to evacuate the building. I mean, you just
Speaker 1: you're there, You're in the zone. But there's some other
Speaker 1: theories we've come across that that help explain exactly why
Speaker 1: Tetris feels like such a perfect game for our brains.
Speaker 1: And one of the ones I wanted to mention was
Speaker 1: actually something I saw alluded to in a brain Craft
Speaker 1: video some of our periscope followers. We were talking to
Speaker 1: him last Friday, and we mentioned that we were going
Speaker 1: to do this episode, and they said, oh, you should
Speaker 1: watch the Braincraft videos. So there, I think they're PBS. Yeah,
Speaker 1: PBS is behind it. I watched this as well. I
Speaker 1: was entertaining. Yeah, and so they but they mentioned something
Speaker 1: called the Zigarnic effect in reference to Tetris. So what
Speaker 1: is the deal with this? Okay, so the Zigarnic effect
Speaker 1: comes to us again. We looked to uh to Soviet thinking.
Speaker 1: Here comes from Soviet to psychologist and psychiatrist Blooma Wolfovna Zagernick.
Speaker 1: She lived from nineteen hundred to nine, and she first
Speaker 1: observed this in the nineteen twenties. Um and it basically
Speaker 1: boils down to this. It's the it's the ecological tendency
Speaker 1: for us to remember incomplete or interrupted tasks better than
Speaker 1: complete ones. Um and Tetris. Of course, to tie that
Speaker 1: in is a continuous stream of incomplete tasks, a constant
Speaker 1: sense of achievement, but also a constantly unachieved finish. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned in the previous episode, there's no hey, you
Speaker 1: won screen and Tetris. It just keeps getting harder and
Speaker 1: harder and harder until you perish. And of course it's
Speaker 1: made up of lots of little individual incomplete tasks, right
Speaker 1: because every time there's a gap in a row in Tetris,
Speaker 1: that's a little thing that there's a little flag in
Speaker 1: your brain that says I need to go back and
Speaker 1: fix that, and I'll get there eventually. So it's a
Speaker 1: one huge incomplete task forever being incomplete, made up of
Speaker 1: an infinite number of incomplete tasks. Uh. It's almost as
Speaker 1: if this was in mind when it was designed. So
Speaker 1: there's a gronic effect of course, plays into the typical
Speaker 1: human drive to finish. What we started to see things
Speaker 1: through to the finish, and the associative associated negative psychological
Speaker 1: univocations of doing the opposite. You know, where you're you're
Speaker 1: haunted by that model airplane you never finished, or that
Speaker 1: novel that you have have completed, or you know, or
Speaker 1: whatever chores around the house are, and god knows, when
Speaker 1: you have a house, there's always some something that's not
Speaker 1: quite finished about everything, and how those just continue to
Speaker 1: stick in your mind? Um, there's a one explanation of
Speaker 1: the Zigarnic effect that I found that I thought was pretty, uh,
Speaker 1: pretty nice comes from Roy Baumbinster and Brad Bushman in
Speaker 1: their two thousand eight textbooks Social Psychology and Human Nature.
Speaker 1: They said, the Zigaronic effect is a tendency to experience automatic,
Speaker 1: intrusive thoughts about a goal that one has pursued, but
Speaker 1: the pursuit of which has been interrupted. That is, if
Speaker 1: you start working toward a goal and fail to get their,
Speaker 1: thoughts about that goal will keep popping into your mind
Speaker 1: while you're doing other things, as if to remind you
Speaker 1: to get back on track and finish reaching that goal.
Speaker 1: So not only is this something that uh is related
Speaker 1: to the motivation we have to keep playing Tetris, but
Speaker 1: it also might sort of explain what we talked about
Speaker 1: in the previous episode. Because this mentions intrusive thoughts. I'll
Speaker 1: see incomplete task. So in the last episode we talked
Speaker 1: about the Tetris effect, where people experience dreams and hallucinations
Speaker 1: about Tetris. If Tetris is never finished yet, it's always
Speaker 1: this intrinsically motivating task that remains incomplete in the mind.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes sense through this method that it
Speaker 1: would keep jumping up into into your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it plays nicely into into just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out Tetris syndrome, the Tetris effect in general. And
Speaker 1: then there's a broader lesson here though, that applies well
Speaker 1: beyond games, and that is that students, be it a you,
Speaker 1: be you an official student, or just somebody studying up
Speaker 1: on something in your life, Uh, it pays to suspend
Speaker 1: your studies, to take a break, to come back to
Speaker 1: it and not try to wipe it all out in
Speaker 1: one massive cramming session. Absolutely. I find this to be
Speaker 1: extremely useful in my own work. So if I'm trying
Speaker 1: to uh to think clearly about maybe an episode I'm
Speaker 1: researching or something like that, I find it's way more
Speaker 1: useful to uh to start on it before I end
Speaker 1: work for one day. So if it's you know, five
Speaker 1: thirty and I'm trying to quit work for the day. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm at the end of one task, it's better
Speaker 1: to do ten percent of the next task and then
Speaker 1: come back to it the next day. My thoughts about
Speaker 1: it are going to be a lot clearer than to
Speaker 1: break from work in between when tasks are concluded and
Speaker 1: when the next one starts. Yeah, and generally, also if
Speaker 1: you have some sleep in between, then you're you're geting
Speaker 1: to consolidate those memories. All that working is working in
Speaker 1: your favor as well. But also it's pointed out a
Speaker 1: lot that if if the task is intimidating, just start it,
Speaker 1: because if you just started, then you get to benefit
Speaker 1: from the Zigarnic effect, because that's effect is going to
Speaker 1: be in play to encourage you to come back and
Speaker 1: work more on it. So beginnings are difficult, but begin
Speaker 1: and then take a break and then come back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this isn't gonna become the self help show, but but
Speaker 1: try that one at least. Yeah, I highly advocate that strategy.
Speaker 1: Get it started, it'll be easier. Another thing that is, Um,
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly where I came across this, but
Speaker 1: I feel like it was in Uh, it was in
Speaker 1: something that was linked to from that Braincraft video. But
Speaker 1: but anyway, however, I came across this. Another thing that
Speaker 1: I saw referenced UH with regard to Tetris is the
Speaker 1: idea of epistemic action. And I had actually never heard
Speaker 1: about this phenomena before, but I it turned out to
Speaker 1: be pretty interesting. So in David Kirsch and Paul Maglio
Speaker 1: published a paper in Cognitive Science. It's called on Distinguishing
Speaker 1: Epistemic and Pragmatic Action, and Kirshi and Maglio make the
Speaker 1: distinction between two different kinds of actions that a person
Speaker 1: can perform. So you've got pragmatic action, and this is one.
Speaker 1: It's an external action that changes something in the external
Speaker 1: world in furtherance of you achieving a goal. So if
Speaker 1: you are stranded on a tiny island and starving, throwing
Speaker 1: a rock at a seagull would be a pragmatic action
Speaker 1: to unlock that seagull's delicious meat. Or you could make
Speaker 1: a much smaller action. You could say, press a button
Speaker 1: while playing Tetris to move a Tetris piece with the
Speaker 1: goal of actually moving it to the spot where you
Speaker 1: want to place it. You're just doing an action to
Speaker 1: reach a goal. But then they distinguish this from a
Speaker 1: different kind of action, a different kind of external action,
Speaker 1: which is what they call epistemic action, and this is
Speaker 1: making a change to the world in order to simplify
Speaker 1: a problem solving task. So imagine you remember those Spot
Speaker 1: the Difference puzzles and children's books, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. They'll show you two pictures of a scene.
Speaker 1: One's Mickey Mouse, you know, roller skating, and the next
Speaker 1: one's Mickey Mouse roller skating, but the clock hands are
Speaker 1: pointing to a different time and something like that. And
Speaker 1: let's say you've got a children's workbook with with two
Speaker 1: of these on different pages. Um, and what you do
Speaker 1: is you tear out one of the pages and then
Speaker 1: hold the pictures right next to each other. That would
Speaker 1: be an epistemic action, because they're what you're doing is
Speaker 1: an action that is really designed to change the nature
Speaker 1: of a problem inside your head, to simplify the task.
Speaker 1: So when you see them next to each other, or
Speaker 1: maybe you um lay them on top of each other
Speaker 1: and hold it up to a light to see what's
Speaker 1: different in the two pages, you're using external action to
Speaker 1: reduce the mental complexity of a task. And they looked
Speaker 1: at Tetris in this paper actually and pointed out how
Speaker 1: experience Tetris players use epistemic action in Tetris, and this
Speaker 1: is the way it works. You've got a block falling
Speaker 1: down and you want to fit it in, and instead
Speaker 1: of doing all the work of flipping the block around
Speaker 1: in your head to see where it would fit, the
Speaker 1: players flip it. They physically flip it, plus press the
Speaker 1: button to flip it to offload some of the cognitive
Speaker 1: work required to see where it would fit. So by
Speaker 1: visually seeing exactly what the block looks like in all
Speaker 1: its orientations, you can see, okay, here's exactly where it
Speaker 1: would fit without having to flip it in your mind,
Speaker 1: thus freeing up some mental resources to look at what's
Speaker 1: the next block in the in the preview bar. So
Speaker 1: so essentially it is using physical action to make mental
Speaker 1: work easier. They say, epistemic action can be used to
Speaker 1: reduce the memory involved in a mental computation UH, it
Speaker 1: can be used to reduce the number of steps involved
Speaker 1: in completing a mental computation, or it can be used
Speaker 1: to reduce the probability of error in a mental computation. UM.
Speaker 1: And so if you follow this idea, you can conclude
Speaker 1: that when you play Tetris, it's again kind of a
Speaker 1: perfect back and forth between body and mind. It creates
Speaker 1: a constant, flowing, rapid feedback cooperation between mental problem solving
Speaker 1: and then this external epistemic action. You use the body
Speaker 1: to simple simplify a problem, You press the button, flip
Speaker 1: the block, see where it would fit. Then you use
Speaker 1: your mind to solve the problem. Then you use the
Speaker 1: body again to execute the solution, and you just keep
Speaker 1: going back and forth on repeat. Alright, so once again
Speaker 1: we see a manner in which Tetris illuminates how our
Speaker 1: brain works. And we've discussed they just almost perfect way
Speaker 1: that Tetris captures our mind. So we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna explore
Speaker 1: some some of the applications that that scientists have have explored,
Speaker 1: have actually looked into, and some some very real possibilities
Speaker 1: for Tetris as a as a treatment option for a
Speaker 1: few different ailments. All Right, we're back. Okay, So Robert,
Speaker 1: we've talked about the Tetris cure. What can you cure
Speaker 1: with tetris? Potentially at least because I was quite surprised
Speaker 1: to see some of this research, but once I read
Speaker 1: into it, it started to make a lot of sense
Speaker 1: to me that you could potentially use tetris in maybe
Speaker 1: in place of drugs or other types of therapies and
Speaker 1: lots of scenarios. Yeah, because we've again just think back
Speaker 1: to all the ways we've discussed in which tetris cat
Speaker 1: is your mind, how it plays into two different modes
Speaker 1: of memory. Um, how it Uh, it's got the skeleton
Speaker 1: key to a deep part of your brain. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's involved in flow state. It really reminds me of
Speaker 1: a lot of what one is setting to do a
Speaker 1: set out to do with meditation and yoga to to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, except you kind of have a leg
Speaker 1: up on it by it being this fun, engaging game
Speaker 1: as opposed to, uh, to something that takes a little
Speaker 1: more deliberate mental or physical force. Okay, so let's imagine
Speaker 1: that I am two packs a day kind of guy
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to quit smoking. Can tetris help me? Potentially? Yes?
Speaker 1: And which sounds crazy, especially anyone who has firsthand experience
Speaker 1: with just how um, how powerful um that addiction can be.
Speaker 1: But we do have some evidence to back it up.
Speaker 1: This is a new study. This came out August two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, and it's from a team of psychologists from
Speaker 1: from Plymouth University and Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
Speaker 1: So this is how it how it went down. Uh,
Speaker 1: they got together thirty one participants ages eighteen through seven,
Speaker 1: and they were monitored for levels of craving and also
Speaker 1: prompted seven times a day to report their cravings. Fifteen
Speaker 1: of these individuals, so roughly half, were required to play
Speaker 1: three minutes of Tetris before reporting their craving levels. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you you have problems with different
Speaker 1: cravings for different things, and somebody's gonna call you and
Speaker 1: ask how you're doing with those cravings, but half of
Speaker 1: the group get to play Tetris first before they're quiz.
Speaker 1: Done it. So, cravings were recorded in thirty percent of occasions,
Speaker 1: most commonly for food and non alcoholic drinks, which were
Speaker 1: reported on nearly two thirds of those occasions. So of
Speaker 1: the cravings were for drug related instances, and these included coffee, cigarettes,
Speaker 1: wine and beer and spice, Yeah and spice. Sixteen percent
Speaker 1: were for miscellaneous activities such as sleeping, playing video games
Speaker 1: to which I found interesting, socializing with friends, and sexual intercourse.
Speaker 1: Food cravings tended to be slightly weaker than those in
Speaker 1: other categories, But they claimed this is the first demonstration
Speaker 1: that cognitive interference. Again, that's Tetris coming into your life,
Speaker 1: captivating your brain, shutting out everything else. Cognitive interference can
Speaker 1: be used outside the lab to reduce cravings for substances
Speaker 1: and activities other than eating. So in this we can
Speaker 1: see how Tetris or some variation of Tetris, some variation
Speaker 1: of a you know, of a puzzle solving game, could
Speaker 1: be used as a support tool for curving addictions, not
Speaker 1: not the again, not the primary tool, but but an
Speaker 1: additional tool. So I'm sure that they didn't find that
Speaker 1: that it would completely eliminate cravings, But did they have
Speaker 1: an estimate for by how much the cravings were reduced? Yeah,
Speaker 1: by approximately one fifth. So I mean that that's you
Speaker 1: could look at that as small, or you could look
Speaker 1: at that as big. I mean, if if all it
Speaker 1: takes is Tetris and you don't have to you know, uh,
Speaker 1: this is without some other kind of like drug interference
Speaker 1: or major behavioral therapy or anything. Yeah, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: trying to curb this addiction, so any tool at your
Speaker 1: disposal that that put gives you an advantage is certainly
Speaker 1: worth taking up. So yeah, I could see this being
Speaker 1: again a part of one's treatment. Certainly not the only
Speaker 1: part of one's treatment, but it could help. It could
Speaker 1: certainly help. Yeah, I wonder the extent to which Tetris
Speaker 1: is special here, like, how would this compare to other
Speaker 1: video games? I feel like Tetris is kind of special
Speaker 1: because we haven't feel the same way, Robert, because we
Speaker 1: haven't really touched on this as much. This is something
Speaker 1: I find in gaming in general these days, especially um
Speaker 1: with a three and a half year old running around
Speaker 1: in my life, is that blessed is the game that
Speaker 1: can be enjoyed in very small allotments of time. Yes, true,
Speaker 1: which Tetrisses is perfect for that. It is one of them.
Speaker 1: I just the other day, when we were preparing for
Speaker 1: this episode, we was doing some research. I decided to
Speaker 1: play a little bit of Tetris, and I several different times,
Speaker 1: I played for maybe three to five minutes, and oh man,
Speaker 1: that was a session. You can't have a three to
Speaker 1: five minute session of I don't know what do people
Speaker 1: play these days of Fallout four? Yeah, these are games
Speaker 1: that require vast periods of time, vast immersive periods of
Speaker 1: time where there's always time for Tetris, and and it's
Speaker 1: never a situation where I can't play Tetris now this
Speaker 1: environment is too distracting. No, you can play Tetris in
Speaker 1: a war zone, which is kind of insightful given the
Speaker 1: next thing we're going to discuss. Yeah, because I think
Speaker 1: it is time to talk about tetris and traumatic memory formation.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people probably know this, but it's
Speaker 1: worth explaining a little bit. Sometimes when people have a
Speaker 1: traumatic experience, they can form a kind of recurrent toxic
Speaker 1: memory pattern that can cause serious trouble for them after
Speaker 1: the traumatic incident is over and done with. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned a combat zone. Yeah, imagine you're in a combat zone,
Speaker 1: whether you are a soldier or just a bystand or whatever.
Speaker 1: You're at a place where people are fighting and there's
Speaker 1: a sudden eruption of gunfire and that leads to intense
Speaker 1: fear maybe maybe two personal injury, to the threat on
Speaker 1: your life, to witnessing the death or injury of others.
Speaker 1: And this can lead to post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
Speaker 1: One of the main symptoms of PTSD is the presence
Speaker 1: of what are known as flashbacks, or these distressing, intrusive
Speaker 1: memories of the traumatic experience that come rushing into your
Speaker 1: mind like an irresistible torrent and can have debilitating effects.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you don't want to be, you know,
Speaker 1: driving the kids to school and suddenly just utterly possessed
Speaker 1: by memories of the time when somebody shot you in
Speaker 1: the shoulder. I mean, it's the one of the worst
Speaker 1: moments of your life is suddenly just popping up in
Speaker 1: your day and in the course of your daily life
Speaker 1: during what should be the best moments of your life
Speaker 1: at times. Right, So, there has been a lot of
Speaker 1: research into ways of treating PTSD and people who already
Speaker 1: have it. So some treatment courses involve cognitive therapy, you
Speaker 1: know that's gonna be talk therapy, or exposure therapy exposing
Speaker 1: yourself to the problem. Some include drugs like anti anxiety
Speaker 1: medications or antidepressants, and there are even some kind of
Speaker 1: weird and controversial therapies that have been suggested, like have
Speaker 1: you ever read anything about eye a movement, desensitization and
Speaker 1: reprocessing or e M D R. No. I don't think
Speaker 1: I've run across this one yet. This is where you
Speaker 1: expose yourself to the traumatic memory, and while you're doing that,
Speaker 1: you practice specific patterns of eye a movement in conjunction
Speaker 1: with the anxiety inducing thoughts. This is a side note.
Speaker 1: I find this last one really fascinating, and I would
Speaker 1: love to hear from listeners who are psychiatrists or or
Speaker 1: from people who have practiced this method personally. I don't know,
Speaker 1: do y'all think there's validity to it. I've read what
Speaker 1: seemed to be credible scientists saying that there is empirical
Speaker 1: research to show that this works, but I've also read
Speaker 1: that it's controversial. It sounds like one of those weird
Speaker 1: scientific discoveries that might be too good to be true,
Speaker 1: like you can really have an effect just by moving
Speaker 1: your eyeballs around. Remind there are some yogurt meditation techniques
Speaker 1: that involved the movement of your eyes and uh, I
Speaker 1: haven't played around with them a lot, but it's it's
Speaker 1: certainly present there, So I wonder if there's some connective
Speaker 1: tissue between the two. Yeah. Well, anyway, that's interesting by itself,
Speaker 1: and i'd love to hear from listeners about it. But
Speaker 1: anyway back to the to the tetris um, what if
Speaker 1: there were a way to all those things I mentioned
Speaker 1: before were if you already have PTSD, you've already got
Speaker 1: this traumatic flashback problem. But what if there were a
Speaker 1: way to inoculate yourself against PTSD before the symptoms begin
Speaker 1: to take hold. So this the idea here is that
Speaker 1: something traumatic has occurred, what can I do to keep
Speaker 1: from to keep that trauma from taking root in my brain? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'd be like if you get bit by a dog
Speaker 1: with rabies and you immediately go to the hospital for
Speaker 1: rabies vaccine. You get bit by a zombie and you
Speaker 1: get somebody to cut your arm off. Yeah, So this
Speaker 1: would be a cognitive vaccine against traumatic memories. So in
Speaker 1: January two thou nine researchers led by Dr Emily A.
Speaker 1: Holmes of Oxford University, they published a study on the
Speaker 1: effects of Tetris on the formation of traumatic or intrusive
Speaker 1: memories and it's called ken. Playing the computer game Tetris
Speaker 1: reduced the build up of flashbacks for trauma, a proposal
Speaker 1: from cognitive science. So they had two pieces of knowledge
Speaker 1: that they were starting with. One of them was cognitive
Speaker 1: science suggests that the brain has selective resources with limited capacity,
Speaker 1: so your brain can't do everything that you can only
Speaker 1: devote so much energy resource to to a limited number
Speaker 1: of things at a time. And the second fact is
Speaker 1: the neurobiology of memory suggests a six hour window to
Speaker 1: disrupt memory consolidation. So that you know that there's this
Speaker 1: idea that about six hours after a memory takes places,
Speaker 1: when the window for consolidating that memory in the brain is,
Speaker 1: you know, forming that strong recurrent pattern memory. So if
Speaker 1: you deny the brain the resources it needs to form
Speaker 1: visuospatial memories during that crucial few hours after the event
Speaker 1: takes place, could you stop bad memories from consolidating with
Speaker 1: such great emphasis in the mind. And they tested it.
Speaker 1: They tested it out by getting forty volunteers and making
Speaker 1: them watch Faces of Death. Act. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Actually they didn't say the name of the tape because
Speaker 1: I remember covering this study like way back in the
Speaker 1: early like the initial version of this podcast episode with
Speaker 1: Alison Lowdermilk, and I don't remember Faces of Death, but
Speaker 1: then maybe I overlooked it. No, no, no, it was
Speaker 1: it was something like that they were they were showed
Speaker 1: a film. Uh shown a film full of horrible images
Speaker 1: designed to simulate a traumatic experience. Quote. All participants viewed
Speaker 1: a traumatic film consisting of scenes of real injury and death,
Speaker 1: followed by a thirty minute structured break. They described the
Speaker 1: film as a twelve minute film that contained eleven clips
Speaker 1: of traumatic content, including graphic real scenes of human surgery,
Speaker 1: fatal road traffic accidents, and drowning. So that was disturbing
Speaker 1: student film, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, they were all made
Speaker 1: to watch that tape from the ring. So after viewing
Speaker 1: the film and taking a real nice thirty minute break,
Speaker 1: half of the participants half of these forty people were
Speaker 1: given nothing to do except sit quietly for ten minutes.
Speaker 1: This was a control group, and the other half played
Speaker 1: Tetris for ten minutes. Pretty simple experiment. Um. Then they
Speaker 1: checked to see how often members of each group experience
Speaker 1: flashbacks during the ten minutes. No surprise, the people playing
Speaker 1: Tetris experience fewer flashbacks. But that's not really surprising they
Speaker 1: were playing Tetris. Then, here's where it gets interesting. The
Speaker 1: researchers sent the volunteers away with instructions to keep a
Speaker 1: diary on how many times they had flashbacks to to
Speaker 1: to the Faces of Death basically over the next week,
Speaker 1: and the different groups had different rates. They found that
Speaker 1: the people who played Tetris for ten minutes after watching
Speaker 1: the film had significantly fewer flashbacks to the Faces of
Speaker 1: Death type video and less symptomology consistent with PTSD when
Speaker 1: they checked back seven days later. Crucially, both groups had
Speaker 1: equivalently strong voluntary recall of the film. And this is
Speaker 1: an interesting aspect too, because they could both remember the
Speaker 1: film fine, they could remember what they saw. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: just that the group that played Tetris had less trouble
Speaker 1: with the unbidden recurrence of these memories throughout their day
Speaker 1: to day lives. So so again, it's not it's not
Speaker 1: just a matter of hey, Tetris distracted them from initially
Speaker 1: thinking about it, but Tetris interfered with the brains codifying
Speaker 1: of the experience as a traumatic. Yeah, And they concluded
Speaker 1: from this that it's not just distraction like you say,
Speaker 1: it's something about the visuospatial nature of Tetris. This is
Speaker 1: something that they call out specifically that Tetris is of
Speaker 1: visual and spatial or visuospatial task because verbal and other
Speaker 1: distracting tasks have been demonstrated ineffective before against trauma flashbacks.
Speaker 1: In some cases they even intensify them. So in this
Speaker 1: first study, one of the things they wanted to point
Speaker 1: out that they were not saying people who already of
Speaker 1: PTSD can get better by playing Tetris, though they speculate
Speaker 1: this could be a possibility, and this gets revisited in
Speaker 1: a later study. And they were also not suggesting that
Speaker 1: playing any video game would have the same effect, and
Speaker 1: they get into that in another experiment in a bit,
Speaker 1: but just a couple of comments. One of the things
Speaker 1: is it's hard to test something like the formation of
Speaker 1: traumatic memories leading to PTSD because for obvious ethical reasons,
Speaker 1: you can't expose somebody to life shattering trauma for the
Speaker 1: sake of the experiment. So the best they could do
Speaker 1: was show somebody a really disturbing movie. And even that
Speaker 1: seems kind of weird. I mean when you read the like, yes,
Speaker 1: they were showed the graphic images of death, and then
Speaker 1: we asked them how troubled they were. Now you could
Speaker 1: imagine a scenario where they are trauma metic rushes out
Speaker 1: begins treating the individual who is is down on the
Speaker 1: ground with that and is wounded, and then passing out
Speaker 1: game boys exactly those soldiers in their nets. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the other half. It seems impractical to seek out people
Speaker 1: who have just been shot or hit by a car
Speaker 1: or something and then give them Tetris. But these findings
Speaker 1: have been followed up on in subsequent studies. So the
Speaker 1: same group did another study in two thousand ten where
Speaker 1: they they attempted to answer the questions would all games
Speaker 1: have this effect via distraction or enjoyment or might some
Speaker 1: games even be harmful? And then second, would the effects
Speaker 1: be found if administered several hours post trauma? Because this
Speaker 1: first one it was just Tetris, and they played thirty
Speaker 1: minutes after they saw the movie, so they essentially repeated
Speaker 1: the experiment, but instead of just Tetris, they tried Tetris
Speaker 1: and then this game called pub Quiz Machine two thousand eight. Um,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I looked at a video of somebody merely
Speaker 1: playing pub Quiz two thousand eight pub Quiz Machine two
Speaker 1: thousand eight on YouTube, and I think that alone could
Speaker 1: cause traumatic memories. But but anyway, they had those too,
Speaker 1: and they concluded that no, the pub Quiz did not
Speaker 1: do as well as Tetris. In fact, they found that
Speaker 1: the pub quiz made the traumatic experience flashbacks more intense.
Speaker 1: So if you if you have a traumatic experience and
Speaker 1: then play pub quiz, it's going to be even worse
Speaker 1: for you. Don't do that. But Tetris still performed better.
Speaker 1: And they also found that even four hours after watching
Speaker 1: the film, Tetris had significant reduction in flashback because window. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can wait four hours after the event play
Speaker 1: some Tetris and supposedly this discourages flashbacks. Just another reason
Speaker 1: to make sure Tetris is on your phone just in case. Now, again,
Speaker 1: I wonder about Tetris versus non verbal visual games. So
Speaker 1: if you're playing Metroid or Shack Foo or something like it,
Speaker 1: does does the game have to provide a certain level
Speaker 1: of challenge? Is there a difference between the effects on
Speaker 1: experience Tetris players and on novices. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of questions that haven't been answered yet. Um. But
Speaker 1: then there was another study from this year and this
Speaker 1: is the last one in psychological science, in a group
Speaker 1: of researchers, again including Dr Emily A. Holmes, who was
Speaker 1: on the other studies, published findings that visual spatial game
Speaker 1: tasks can block traumatic memories even after the memories are
Speaker 1: already formed. So remember earlier, I was like, well, they
Speaker 1: weren't saying that you can cure PTSD or not cure,
Speaker 1: but but help or alleviate some aspects of PTSD just
Speaker 1: by playing tetris after it's already formed. Here they found
Speaker 1: maybe you can do that. And because what they did
Speaker 1: is they had people after the memory formation had already
Speaker 1: taken place, recall the memories, so bring up voluntarily in
Speaker 1: the mind the traumatic memories and then play Tetris, and
Speaker 1: they found that this also reduced flashbacks. Well that that
Speaker 1: makes sense given the nature of memories. The example I
Speaker 1: always bring up when we discussed this is that that
Speaker 1: every memory in your head is not a little stone
Speaker 1: statue of the event, but a clay statue of the event.
Speaker 1: And it's it's it's something that it can be, it's valuable,
Speaker 1: it can be changed, it can be altered every time
Speaker 1: you draw it out there. And also when you draw
Speaker 1: it out it is susceptible, uh, to positive change if
Speaker 1: it's traumatic. Um, So that would make sense. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: in all of these studies they chalk this up to
Speaker 1: competition for resources in in visual visuospatial uh conception in
Speaker 1: the brain. Essentially that they're saying that the disturbing images
Speaker 1: that come in your flashbacks when you're you know, remembering
Speaker 1: that you got shot or hit by a car, you know,
Speaker 1: threatened by a guy with a chainsaw or something whatever
Speaker 1: that is, that's terrifying you. It's essentially a visual spatial
Speaker 1: problem in your brain. And if you can if you
Speaker 1: can dampen that, if you can just kind of uh
Speaker 1: smudge that memory with competition by the part of your
Speaker 1: brain that you used to solve Tetris puzzles, you signal
Speaker 1: effiicantly weakened the hold it has over you. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I would love to see more research in that area,
Speaker 1: and it seems very interesting and hopefully promising. I mean,
Speaker 1: if people can get relief from this, I I think
Speaker 1: that's a wonderful thing. Yeah, totally. So we have one
Speaker 1: more area of potential tetris treatment to discuss here, and
Speaker 1: it concerns uh something that's commonly referred to as lazy I.
Speaker 1: We're talking about amblyopia here. It's a disorder of sight
Speaker 1: and it results in decreased vision in an eye that
Speaker 1: otherwise appears normal. Or out of proportion to associated structural
Speaker 1: problems with the eye. So up to three percent of
Speaker 1: the population suffers from amblyopia and it's a It's ultimately
Speaker 1: caused by poor processing in the brain, which results in
Speaker 1: the suppression of the weaker eye by the stronger eye. Huh.
Speaker 1: Now that the common method of treating this has always
Speaker 1: been patching, So you wear an eye patch over the
Speaker 1: a I um and uh and and eventually brings things
Speaker 1: back back to order. But um, this is this is
Speaker 1: generally more helpful with younger cases and not with older
Speaker 1: individuals who are suffering from lazy eye. So two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: a research team led by Dr Robert Hess from mcgel
Speaker 1: University and the Research Institute of the mcgel University Health
Speaker 1: Center looked in to possible use of tetris as a
Speaker 1: means of treating uh individuals are suffering from the yeah
Speaker 1: once more so, they they found that by distributing information
Speaker 1: between the two eyes in a complimentary fashion, catris trains
Speaker 1: both eyes to work together, which is which again is
Speaker 1: countered to previous treatments such as patching, So you're forcing
Speaker 1: both eyes to cooperate, which increases the level of plasticity
Speaker 1: in the brain and allows UH the the the individual's
Speaker 1: brain to relearn, essentially relearn how to look at something
Speaker 1: and take individual data. So they did this by using
Speaker 1: a head mounted video goggles. They displayed the game dicoptically,
Speaker 1: so one I was allowed to see only the following
Speaker 1: objects and the other eye was allowed to see only
Speaker 1: ground plane objects. So this forced the two eyes to
Speaker 1: work together, so you have to be they have two
Speaker 1: eyes have to be working together to get the full image. Wait,
Speaker 1: which I could see the preview box where they're playing
Speaker 1: without the preview box. Maybe they were playing without the
Speaker 1: preview box. See this is this is really crazy because
Speaker 1: in that documentary about Tetris I mentioned in the UH
Speaker 1: in the other episode, it's called the Ecstasy of Order. Again,
Speaker 1: I really liked it, so I recommended. There's a Tetris
Speaker 1: champion in their name, Jonas Newbauer, And at one point
Speaker 1: he jokes around by demonstrating his secret weapon, and it's
Speaker 1: pointing his eyeballs separately in different directions. Presumably I think
Speaker 1: the joke is so that one can watch the falling
Speaker 1: block while the other watches the preview box to tell
Speaker 1: you which block is coming next. I think he's joking,
Speaker 1: but I'm not positive whether he's he actually uses this
Speaker 1: while playing or not. Huh yeah, because he would be
Speaker 1: he would be doing the direct opposite of the very
Speaker 1: thing about the tatris experience that is being uh utilized
Speaker 1: potentially treat lazy in this case. So uh as as
Speaker 1: far as this particular research goes, clinical trials worse at
Speaker 1: least initially scheduled for and the company Ambliotech, purchased the
Speaker 1: research findings and licensed it to to you be Soft
Speaker 1: for the creation of lazy eye treatment games, specific like
Speaker 1: therapy games. Yeah. So Ambliotech is currently seeking permission from
Speaker 1: the U S. Food and Drug Administration to market the therapy,
Speaker 1: such as their game dig Rush, which is not tetris um.
Speaker 1: And it looks uh, it looks like it's basically like
Speaker 1: a little digger character that's moving around on a If
Speaker 1: it ain't tetris I don't care. It's certainly less abstract. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that it utilizes a tablet and
Speaker 1: three D glasses, so you get that red and blue,
Speaker 1: um you know, disconnect and you have to use both
Speaker 1: eyes and concert to see the full picture. Um. So anyway,
Speaker 1: they're they're seeking FDA approval for this, according to the
Speaker 1: most recent report, which was the March BBC report. And
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about that company and
Speaker 1: see some screenshots from their game, you can find them
Speaker 1: at www dot ambliotech dot com. That's a m b
Speaker 1: L y O T e c H. You know, Tetris
Speaker 1: has been such an interesting subject to do on this
Speaker 1: show because I I still have the intuition I had
Speaker 1: at the very beginning. I still feel like there's an
Speaker 1: ancient secret inside Tetris, or maybe Tetris is the ancient secret,
Speaker 1: And after doing all this research, I don't feel any
Speaker 1: closer to articulating what that that ancient mystery or that
Speaker 1: secret is. What's because the Holy Tetromino stands out side
Speaker 1: of our human world, and in playing Tetris were able
Speaker 1: to dip into the deep currents of energy that underlie
Speaker 1: our reality. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to come up with
Speaker 1: some kind of astronomical metaphor or or the stars Tetris blocks,
Speaker 1: but they're not really unless you start thinking about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's no Indian thinking about it. Wait a second,
Speaker 1: Yeah they are, Yeah, they are. Do you ever notice
Speaker 1: how the Maria on the moon, the lunar oceans, that
Speaker 1: it's all Tetris blocks. Yeah, yeah, I'll buy into it.
Speaker 1: It sounds good to me. It's a big storm on Jupiter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just another Tetris block. That's what two by two I think. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it is a very fast, swirling Z shaped block. So
Speaker 1: it's it's a storm because it's the troubling Z shaped block.
Speaker 1: Those blocks are the devil. All right. Well, we know
Speaker 1: that this is a topic that resonates with a lot
Speaker 1: of people out there because Tetris is just something that's
Speaker 1: unavoidable in our culture. At this point, everybody's seen it
Speaker 1: or played it. You have varying levels of experience with it,
Speaker 1: but chances are you had at least a little bit
Speaker 1: of time that you're addicted to it. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: you know the ancient secret of Tetris and you understand
Speaker 1: why it is the strongest potion in the in the
Speaker 1: Digital Sorcerer's potion bag, you should let us know. That's right.
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Speaker 1: us with your personal Tetris stories or any feedback on
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