Who hasn’t played Tetris at least once in their life? It is said that its own creator could not finish writing the code because he had been playing it for several days. Regardless of whether this anecdote is true or not, the truth is that Tetris is quite addictive and precisely for this reason it has been the subject of research in numerous studies carried out in the field of Psychology.
Thus, the “Tetris Effect” has been discovered, which would refer to a phenomenon of clouding of our thoughts, mental images and dreams as a result of having been carrying out the same activity for hours. In practice, it was found that people who played Tetris for many hours straight afterwards often saw the game’s patterns in the real world and even in their dreams.
As you can imagine, this phenomenon is not restricted to this game but can also be applied to other activities in life, fundamentally if for work reasons you must spend several hours in front of a telescope or microscope, if you are an expert in control of quality and you see hundreds and thousands of almost identical products parade before you, if you drive for long distances or even if you play for a long time at a chess or checkers board.
Computer programmers have also reported similar experiences: they often dream about code. While mathematicians are often “persecuted” by the equations they try to solve during the day.
Those who have been constantly exposed to constant noise such as that made by a ceiling fan, a drill press, or a machine gun have also reported hearing a similar sound, even when the primary source has stopped.
What are the causes of this phenomenon?
In the past it was thought that the Tetris Effect was determined by memory. However, a study conducted at Harvard Medical School showed that this phenomenon is more disconnected from memory than we think. In fact, these researchers had a group of people with anterograde amnesia (incapable of forming new declarative memories) play Tetris. Thus, it was noted that the next day the participants reported having dreamed of these shapes, although they were unable to remember that they had played Tetris.
The explanation probably lies in the fact that Tetris completely immerses us in an environment, capturing the attention of all our senses. Therefore, later our brain has to work hard to be able to change this structure that allowed us to play very concentrated. In this way, residues or what we could call “active neural patterns” related to the previous activity remain.
The psychological benefits of Tetris
Beyond this effect, which can be quite annoying, a study carried out in 1994 showed that twelve sessions of 30 minutes each can improve our spatial skills. Specifically, in skills related to mental rotation, spatial perception and spatial visualization.
Another more recent experiment, developed in 2009, indicates that video games such as Tetris can help us prevent the formation of traumatic memories. In fact, when “Tetris-based treatment” is applied shortly after the traumatic event, the ability of this game to attract our attention is such that it can prevent the memory of traumatic images and this decreases the precision, intensity and frequency of the memory.
Sources:
Holmes, E. A. at. Al. (2009) Can Playing the Computer Game «Tetris» Reduce the Build-Up of Flashbacks for Trauma? A Proposal from Cognitive Science. PLoS ONE 4 (1).
Stickgold, R. at. Al. (2000). Replaying the Game: Hypnagogic Images in Normals and Amnesics. Science; 290 (5490): 350–353.
Okagaki, L. & Frensch,P. (1994) Effects of video game playing on measures of spatial performance: Gender effects in late adolescence. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology; 15(1) 33-58.
