Psychologists Claim Games Alter Personal Reality

[Signa]

This reminds me of the time after playing Oblivion that I saw some flowers and wanted to harvest them.

Also, to this day, I still try to stealth around like I'm playing Thief. I can't expect to hide in shadows, but I'm always careful to make my footsteps not sound loud.

 

[hudsonzero]

this is kinda true for me, after only playing infamous for a week i started looking for ways to clime up the buildings on granger street.(newcastle)

 

[hypovolemia]

Wow! A whopping 42 people in a very narrow age range! What an incredibly credible paper, with watertight proof this makes!

Of course that's not a lot, but for the kind of study they did it's enough. They call it "the first-ever paper in the psychological literature on 'game transfer phenomena,'" and as such it's bound to be mostly explorative. Also designing, conducting and analyzing interviews is a lot of work and very time consuming.
When you don't really have an idea of what to expect asking 100+ people is a big waste of resources. Now that they have a bit of data, they actually know what to look for and can get more people from a broader age range for the follow-up studies.

Edit:

Culture does a good job of making some people afraid of things like spiders or sharks or bats that are completely harmless.

Fear of animals like spiders or sharks has an evolutionary basis, so that's more nature than nurture. It's much easier to develop a fear of potentially dangerous animals than, say, cars (although they are a bigger threat for most of us).

 

[JediMB]

Games do not alter my perception of reality in the way described, no.

My fellow Swedes are just being silly, I think.

 

[OutforEC]

I wonder if the researchers have seen Scott Pilgrim.

 

[callmegreen]

I did the same after my 3 day portal 2 binge.

I heard GlaDos Taunting me and thought constantly about where i could Portal

Also i started to see in eagle vision for awhile after my AC:B binge.........

Also tryed to use vats when i was in a fist fight..... Didnt work

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

Is this a problem?

I was just thinking that. I definitely know it affects me but not in the way that I think everyone can be murdered without consequences. Rather, every task of the day is a little quest :3

 

[playinthedark]

I'd have to agree.

Back in the day a friend and I played GTA Vice City for about 15 hours straight. Finally I'd had enough and went to drive home. Halfway home I pulled up at the lights, and my old crate of a car started making a funny noise. "Ah this car's wrecked, I need a new one" I thought, spying the car next to me. I reached for my seatbelt, thinking for just a moment that I'd just get out and take the car next to me, GTA-style.

Obviously at this point I stopped and realised, no, reality, can't do that in reality.

Scary moment.

 

[Dindril]

I can sort of understand this. Games aren't the only think that tend to temporarily effect the way you think, but due to it engaging a lot more of our senses/mind than any other entertainment medium, it makes sense that more would bleed over. But, I can read a book for a few hours, and by the time I'm done, for the next hour or so, my thoughts will follow the writing patterns of the book.
I think it has to do with how we adapt to allow ourselves to process the information the best we can, and afterwords, we have to adapt back.

Agreed. I also sometimes do this with prominent movie figures after I've just finished watching the appropriate movie. Because I'm so adapted to seeing in the same way as them, I leave the theatre being able to hold onto that perspective.

OT: I'll be honest, I've never had that game-bleeding effect ... don't really know why ... :\

The only time I can think of it happening to me is (other than getting pissed at getting a text, because my text alert is the alert sound from metal gear solid, and I had been playing lots of Peace Walker), would be everything moving (down or up, i don't remember) after playing lots of guitar hero, which I think that would be adjusting to focusing on constantly moving objects.

 

[farscythe]

im always taking note of good buildings to take over in case of zombies.... does that count?

 

[Frontastic]

So you might refer to this as a "bleeding effect" of sorts...

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

Ha! I don't know what your talking about!

Now if you excuse me, I have to put on my blue armor and destroy evil robot masters in the name of everlasting peace!

 

[stinkyrobot]

Everything we do and everything we interact with change the way we view the world.

 

[OldAccount]

Oh, boy are we ever going to hear about it when Fox News gets hold of this and decides to spin it.

 

[Mad1Cow]

Well, after playing Mirror's Edge for ages, I was seeing the world in things that I can vault off of and looking over the balcony in a shopping centre thinking, "I can so totally make that fall"...never did jump, too cowardly too, but I did suddenly get the urge to just run for no reason...

And the same's happening with LA Noire, I'm analysing everything as if it's related to a crime scene...

 

[JochemDude]

Yeah, duh. Same as everything in life has an impact on you're personal reality.

 

[tthor]

A study into The Tetris Effect [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheTetrisEffect]? This is a paper is hall read and wonder why it took them so long to do.

I also apologise now to anyone who gets stuck in tvtrope-land

I was just about to mention the Tetris Effect. this seems like kinda old news
its interesting none the less,

 

[MisterDyslexo]

Doesn't the same thing happen if you read too much tactical or enginnering information, or swatch a movie, read a fictional book, or you know just about anything else? I mean I see judge every corner by its certain size, blindspot, etc, because I got jumped a lot one year in school (at least forty times), so I'd say that its just normal. Happens with everything. Especially PTSD.

 

[Fbuh]

It isn't just games though. It's pretty much and type of information media that get's across to us. It's called human behavior. As a social species, our inherent instincts and reactions are to want to bond with our environment and the people around us. Commonly accepted information medias help bring us together. In short, it helps us to feel accepted and fill a niche in society. Or I'm just spouting bullshit. With me, you can never tell (much to the chagrin of my family).

 

[zontelfonzo]

Didn't some people say the same things about dungeons and dragons about 30 years ago. It seems to be that claims like these are just recycled every 20-30 years and stuck on something that a previous generations is unused to. Although claims that aren't 100% factual aren't really something to be bothered about until, someone starts accepting it as 100% truth, especially because of ignorance.