Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
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noiseredux
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Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
Remember? Someone was gonna get paid to play nothing but Medal Of Honor or something for a month? Was it Aaron? I think it was Aaron. I'm just curious what the outcome was.
Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
Searching for "paid" and "study" returned this.
Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
It was Aaron and the game was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
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noiseredux
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Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
oh right. I don't really know one recent FPS from another honestly.swiftzx wrote:It was Aaron and the game was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
So aaron, how'd it go?
Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
oh yeah, sorry. forgot to provide updates.
it was a pretty weird experience. basically they had me in there once a week and i did about an hour's worth of memory exercises. they would also give me sheets of paper where i had to go down 5 columns and read aloud the color of the word as fast as i could. the first page had the color corresponding to the word (like BLUE or GREEN), but the they would have me try and do it with another page where the colors were deliberately not matched to the word (like RED or GREEN). it was a LOT harder than it sounds and made me feel kinda stupid, haha.
they then gave me a laptop which i took home and had to play through the single player campaign of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (not the new one). they did not give me a gamepad or a mouse, and it totally fucking sucked trying to play that game with a touchpad and a keyboard. i got used to it though. i also turned on the console and cheated so i could just mess around. i guess they never found out because i got all my checks, haha. they told me they had a time-monitoring program running in the background just to make sure i was playing at least 8 hours a week, so i guess i did okay.
in between visits i also had to track my media viewing habits, like if i watched a movie, or tv, or internet video, or listened to music, and if it contained any depictions of violence or not. i was also told not to play any video games at all other than COD4, including rock band, wii sports, simple things like that. (the sheet explicitly said "do not play rock band" which i thought was pretty funny)
the game does kinda suck, by the way. pretty shallow for all of it's big-budget Hollywood-style storytelling. i did like the stealth sections and the part where you have to snipe the russian guy was sorta neat, but i've never been a big fan of the "run-into-a-warzone-and-shoot-a-swarm-of-dudes" type of FPS.
anyway, the second, third and fourth visits i went to i had to undergo an MRI scan. if you've never had an MRI before, it is pretty claustrophobic. they put these goggles on my eyes so i could see whatever tests they had me try and do within the scanner, like having a series of letters pop up one at a time, and having me push a button for every letter except for "X." here's where it starts to get kinda fucked up...
before the MRI the instructor gave me some demos of what the exercises would be like in the scanner. the last of them was a memory exercise where i'd have to view images in succession and then afterwards be taken to another room with a laptop and identify the images i saw that day vs. the images i didn't see. in the demo i believe there were pictures of a bus, a flower, an old man, some candy, a city... just really neutral, simple images.
when i got into the scanner, the lady supervising the scan came through the headset and said "okay here's the memory exercise you talked about with the instructor." instead of neutral, simple images, i was shown some of the most violent and disturbing pictures i have ever seen in my entire life. people being stabbed, pictures of starving children, a dead baby buried with its face visible, women being beaten, people doing drugs, pictures of weapons... it was really not very cool at all. i felt kinda misled and it almost made me want to not continue with the study but after talking with the instructor and telling him that i could definitely tell the difference between a violent movie or a violent video game, and seriously disturbing pictures of actual violence against actual people; he told me that was a good thing and that a lot of people didn't think that far into it. so i decided to soldier on. it was weird.
but, yeah, i got $750, paid off a credit card, bought some games, and now i have a neat story. haha.
it was a pretty weird experience. basically they had me in there once a week and i did about an hour's worth of memory exercises. they would also give me sheets of paper where i had to go down 5 columns and read aloud the color of the word as fast as i could. the first page had the color corresponding to the word (like BLUE or GREEN), but the they would have me try and do it with another page where the colors were deliberately not matched to the word (like RED or GREEN). it was a LOT harder than it sounds and made me feel kinda stupid, haha.
they then gave me a laptop which i took home and had to play through the single player campaign of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (not the new one). they did not give me a gamepad or a mouse, and it totally fucking sucked trying to play that game with a touchpad and a keyboard. i got used to it though. i also turned on the console and cheated so i could just mess around. i guess they never found out because i got all my checks, haha. they told me they had a time-monitoring program running in the background just to make sure i was playing at least 8 hours a week, so i guess i did okay.
in between visits i also had to track my media viewing habits, like if i watched a movie, or tv, or internet video, or listened to music, and if it contained any depictions of violence or not. i was also told not to play any video games at all other than COD4, including rock band, wii sports, simple things like that. (the sheet explicitly said "do not play rock band" which i thought was pretty funny)
the game does kinda suck, by the way. pretty shallow for all of it's big-budget Hollywood-style storytelling. i did like the stealth sections and the part where you have to snipe the russian guy was sorta neat, but i've never been a big fan of the "run-into-a-warzone-and-shoot-a-swarm-of-dudes" type of FPS.
anyway, the second, third and fourth visits i went to i had to undergo an MRI scan. if you've never had an MRI before, it is pretty claustrophobic. they put these goggles on my eyes so i could see whatever tests they had me try and do within the scanner, like having a series of letters pop up one at a time, and having me push a button for every letter except for "X." here's where it starts to get kinda fucked up...
before the MRI the instructor gave me some demos of what the exercises would be like in the scanner. the last of them was a memory exercise where i'd have to view images in succession and then afterwards be taken to another room with a laptop and identify the images i saw that day vs. the images i didn't see. in the demo i believe there were pictures of a bus, a flower, an old man, some candy, a city... just really neutral, simple images.
when i got into the scanner, the lady supervising the scan came through the headset and said "okay here's the memory exercise you talked about with the instructor." instead of neutral, simple images, i was shown some of the most violent and disturbing pictures i have ever seen in my entire life. people being stabbed, pictures of starving children, a dead baby buried with its face visible, women being beaten, people doing drugs, pictures of weapons... it was really not very cool at all. i felt kinda misled and it almost made me want to not continue with the study but after talking with the instructor and telling him that i could definitely tell the difference between a violent movie or a violent video game, and seriously disturbing pictures of actual violence against actual people; he told me that was a good thing and that a lot of people didn't think that far into it. so i decided to soldier on. it was weird.
but, yeah, i got $750, paid off a credit card, bought some games, and now i have a neat story. haha.
Steam / PSN / Twitter: aaronjohnmiller
Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
Looks like they must want to see if your brain still responds to violence after playing violent videogames as it would if you had not played the games. They must have used deception because they thought you would be able to prepare yourself for the violent images ahead of time if you knew it was coming.
This reminds me, I never let people know what happened with the video game study I participated in. The one I was involved in wanted to look at gamers vs nongamers to see if they had better ability to notice and track very quick movements. I had to look at a computer screen that was split into 4 quadrants with a big + sign. The quadrants were labeled 1, 2, 3, 4. The screen would turn to static, then show the + sign, then a tiny blue dot would appear in one of the quadrants for just a fraction of a second. The blue dot appears and disappears really quickly and you have to correctly identify which quadrant it appeared it. I didn't even notice it during the first few practice trials. After awhile though, I got better at noticing it and I got one of the top 3 high scores for the testing phase, though some other guy had pretty much a perfect score that blew mine away.
What he found is that gamers are very good at this. Also, people that don't play can become good at it if they play games for an extended period of time. This skill suggests gamers have a better ability of scanning their visual field and quickly picking up important pieces of information. This skill is useful for certain types of jobs, such as radar air traffic control. Some of these kinds of jobs now encourage their employees to play videogames to improve their visuo-spacial abilities because of the findings of studies like this.
This reminds me, I never let people know what happened with the video game study I participated in. The one I was involved in wanted to look at gamers vs nongamers to see if they had better ability to notice and track very quick movements. I had to look at a computer screen that was split into 4 quadrants with a big + sign. The quadrants were labeled 1, 2, 3, 4. The screen would turn to static, then show the + sign, then a tiny blue dot would appear in one of the quadrants for just a fraction of a second. The blue dot appears and disappears really quickly and you have to correctly identify which quadrant it appeared it. I didn't even notice it during the first few practice trials. After awhile though, I got better at noticing it and I got one of the top 3 high scores for the testing phase, though some other guy had pretty much a perfect score that blew mine away.
What he found is that gamers are very good at this. Also, people that don't play can become good at it if they play games for an extended period of time. This skill suggests gamers have a better ability of scanning their visual field and quickly picking up important pieces of information. This skill is useful for certain types of jobs, such as radar air traffic control. Some of these kinds of jobs now encourage their employees to play videogames to improve their visuo-spacial abilities because of the findings of studies like this.
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Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
On a funny note, I've been applying for jobs lately, and I've noticed on some of the government websites they ask for gaming experience...and they don't mean gambling.J T wrote:Looks like they must want to see if your brain still responds to violence after playing violent videogames as it would if you had not played the games. They must have used deception because they thought you would be able to prepare yourself for the violent images ahead of time if you knew it was coming.
This reminds me, I never let people know what happened with the video game study I participated in. The one I was involved in wanted to look at gamers vs nongamers to see if they had better ability to notice and track very quick movements. I had to look at a computer screen that was split into 4 quadrants with a big + sign. The quadrants were labeled 1, 2, 3, 4. The screen would turn to static, then show the + sign, then a tiny blue dot would appear in one of the quadrants for just a fraction of a second. The blue dot appears and disappears really quickly and you have to correctly identify which quadrant it appeared it. I didn't even notice it during the first few practice trials. After awhile though, I got better at noticing it and I got one of the top 3 high scores for the testing phase, though some other guy had pretty much a perfect score that blew mine away.
What he found is that gamers are very good at this. Also, people that don't play can become good at it if they play games for an extended period of time. This skill suggests gamers have a better ability of scanning their visual field and quickly picking up important pieces of information. This skill is useful for certain types of jobs, such as radar air traffic control. Some of these kinds of jobs now encourage their employees to play videogames to improve their visuo-spacial abilities because of the findings of studies like this.
Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
I hope they used a control group that did the violent imagery test before the gaming. Otherwise this test will tell them nothing.J T wrote:Looks like they must want to see if your brain still responds to violence after playing violent videogames as it would if you had not played the games.
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Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
It's possible another group played a non-violent game.Hatta wrote:I hope they used a control group that did the violent imagery test before the gaming. Otherwise this test will tell them nothing.J T wrote:Looks like they must want to see if your brain still responds to violence after playing violent videogames as it would if you had not played the games.
Re: Who was getting paid to play video games for a study?
yeah this is what happened. it was some kind of memory training software they had to take home. kind of like a really, really boring game.Jrecee wrote:It's possible another group played a non-violent game.Hatta wrote:I hope they used a control group that did the violent imagery test before the gaming. Otherwise this test will tell them nothing.J T wrote:Looks like they must want to see if your brain still responds to violence after playing violent videogames as it would if you had not played the games.
Steam / PSN / Twitter: aaronjohnmiller