Psychology study on gaming and cognitive abilities

[cambridgegamesstudy]

Hello! Are you interested in knowing how the cognitive abilities of someone who plays an MMORPG like WoW compares to the cognitive abilities of someone who plays an FPS like CS:GO?

We are third-year psychology students at the University of Cambridge and we’d like to invite you to take part in a study exploring relationships between video game play and cognitive abilities. We are looking for people over 18 who currently or used to play MOBA or MMORPGs. This study should take 15-20 minutes and will require you to answer a few short survey questions related to gaming and then complete two cognitive tests. Upon completion, you will receive feedback on your test scores and see how players of different games performed on average.

To take part, please click here.

Thanks!


Edit: Thank you for your interest and your participation in this study. This survey will close in 24 hours on 9th of April, 11am GMT

[Aehl]

Oh look another one.

Yeah thought so..all maths questions. Newsflash: cognition is more than mathematics. No spatial or logic or language oir concept tests?

BTW just how does the amount of money I may or may not have spent ingame have any bearing on "cognition"? Whats the relevance?

[thesmall001]

Oh look another one.

Yeah thought so..all maths questions. Newsflash: cognition is more than mathematics. No spatial or logic or language oir concept tests?

BTW just how does the amount of money I may or may not have spent ingame have any bearing on "cognition"? Whats the relevance?

There are after the "math" questions. Also, it's not Math, it's logical reasoning and pattern identification. You can use a calculator. It identifies how quickly you can establish variance in a data set.

[Gheld]

Do people actually think they are coming up with a refreshing and original assignment to turn in when they do this?

What affect does it have on the cognition of a university professor when they receive like 20 different assignments a year that are "Methodology: I link spammed a video game forum and cherry picked the responses that fit my conclusion instead of running a simplified random sample"

[cambridgegamesstudy]

Whether the study is interesting depends more on the design and hypotheses than where the sample came from. Unfortunately you can't usually explain exactly what your hypotheses are to people who are taking the test because it would bias their responses.

If we stated exactly what the hypotheses are here, then people could choose to respond in a way that fits (or doesn't fit) them. People who submit their email address at the end of the test (optional) will eventually receive an email explaining what the hypotheses were and whether they were supported by the study.

[Deleted]

Oh look another one.

Yeah thought so..all maths questions. Newsflash: cognition is more than mathematics. No spatial or logic or language oir concept tests?

BTW just how does the amount of money I may or may not have spent ingame have any bearing on "cognition"? Whats the relevance?

Just do the survey and help a struggling student already.

Man, people really whine about everything.

[Deleted]

Question 9 is a funny one; I've got two (maybe three) answers for it that are both sound. Is your test set up to only accept one correct answer for each question, out of curiosity?

Ah, it turns out people get different questions when taking the test. I guess the question still stands, though.

[emilylorange]

BTW just how does the amount of money I may or may not have spent ingame have any bearing on "cognition"? Whats the relevance?

lol what does it say about me that I wouldn't even be able to answer that question.

*stares into middle distance, the quiet echo of 'repair all' being clicked after every raid wipe playing eerily*

Oh we're not talking about gold. Well that question is far less interesting.

[emilylorange]

Actually I'm going to edit this for some feedback.

I feel like your questions in general, and your OP in particular need some better wording.

You are not interested in people who play 'MMOs and MoBAs', you are interested in PvPers. The only questions you asked about my experience were PvP related.

Also I feel like your actual pattern questions need slightly different directions than your sample. Some of these seem like they're supposed to be closer to 'If X Y Z, then A B ????', not 'A B C D E ?????', like the sample implies. It's misleading of expectations. I went back and reread the directions to make sure (um... the only way to do that was to re-submit the general questions because there's no back button, sorry about your two incomplete data sets >_>).

Or maybe figuring out what the question means is the real test and I failed :O

Or even worse, maybe I'm just too stupid to respond. All that PvEin' I think.

[Bigthumbb]

Wow. After blazing through the numerical pattern questions in about 2 minutes, I was much humbled by the visual pattern ones. Like, I couldn't even answer a single one for sure, and it took me like 10 minutes on each one.

Edit: Okay, I tried it again, as soon as you get the basic gist of the visual ones it's very easy. The only real test is whether or not you can recognize the principle(s). And if you have any experience doing these exact sort of problems, it will be a million times easier.

[thesmall001]

People who've done any computing and recognise logic calculations will be at a big advantage for answering the questions.

[emilylorange]

People who've done any computing and recognise logic calculations will be at a big advantage for answering the questions.

Poop I am too stupid to answer.

No wait I'll try to be constructive - since you already have a question in there about level of education, perhaps you should also ask people to describe their vocation/experience with this type of logical testing.

[docterfreeze]

League players are smarter than DOTA players, confirmed.

[Deleted]

Even though some of those imagery patterns completely boggled my mind, I scored significantly above average so I'm obligated to call this a good study.

You are not interested in people who play 'MMOs and MoBAs', you are interested in PvPers. The only questions you asked about my experience were PvP related.

I was only asked about my hours played and money spent on microtransactions. I'd be interested to know what sort of questions you received.

Either way, it'd be cool if the OP shares some of the conclusions when the data's gathered, if he'd be so inclined.

[emilylorange]

Even though some of those imagery patterns completely boggled my mind, I scored significantly above average so I'm obligated to call this a good study.



I was only asked about my hours played and money spent on microtransactions. I'd be interested to know what sort of questions you received.

Either way, it'd be cool if the OP shares some of the conclusions when the data's gathered, if he'd be so inclined.

After I indicating I do not participate in competitive pVp in wow specifically it asked me to indicate my highest ranking and what season it was o.o

Also asked my rating in scII, where the majority of my play is in the custom maps:/

Oh and my highest ranking in hearthstone, where I've the most time in tavern brawls and the solo adventure.

All good questions except if you look at my answers you think I've spent 100+ hours on the game start screen

[Deleted]

After I indicating I do not participate in competitive pVp in wow specifically it asked me to indicate my highest ranking and what season it was o.o

Also asked my rating in scII, where the majority of my play is in the custom maps:/

Oh and my highest ranking in hearthstone, where I've the most time in tavern brawls and the solo adventure.

All good questions except if you look at my answers you think I've spent 100+ hours on the game start screen

Ooh, interesting. I wonder just how important that is to their hypothesis. I'm not sure if they were trying to find correlation between skill level and IQ, or if your questions on pvp were just to try and hide whatever their actual goal was. If you finished, there was a feedback box to fill in though; perhaps they should have given you the chance to differentiate between competitive and casual play in any given game.

But hey. Who doesn't have 100 hours of main menu time. Dat music, yo.

[emilylorange]

Ooh, interesting. I wonder just how important that is to their hypothesis. I'm not sure if they were trying to find correlation between skill level and IQ, or if your questions on pvp were just to try and hide whatever their actual goal was. If you finished, there was a feedback box to fill in though; perhaps they should have given you the chance to differentiate between competitive and casual play in any given game.

But hey. Who doesn't have 100 hours of main menu time. Dat music, yo.

lol I didn't, because, as I said, I'm too stupid

I'm sorry everyone I'm bringing the test scores down.

[Deleted]

lol I didn't, because, as I said, I'm too stupid

I'm sorry everyone I'm bringing the test scores down.

If we get the scores low enough, everyone can be above average!

I like your duck-people by the way.

[nomorepriest]

I'm average IQ

[Deja Thoris]

I don't see the point of this survey.

I mean, you can take the people that play wow or dota that a rough guess of their IQ is 80 or 100 or whatever.

So? So...? Whats meaningul about this?

I mean if this was a high school remedial class then good for you. It's a Cambridge assignment and this is the best you can come up with? Thats tragic. I hope start to care about what you're studying soon or else the only question you'll be asking in your professional life is "would you like fries with that?"