Scientific American article about SC2+Science - Page 6

On December 03 2011 00:19 bLah. wrote:
By Sandra Upson
-this part blew my mind

On December 02 2011 22:22 FallDownMarigold wrote:



I see what you are saying. I also appreciate you being clear on what I am unclear about: Here's a better way to present basic idea without letting the details confuse things:

Although the motor component of SC2 -- the requirement of inputting commands into the game -- does not constitute all of the difficulty involved in playing SC2, there is no doubt that it does play an important role in performance given the fact that there is a relatively huge time delay between instantaneously issuing multiple commands vs. quickly issuing single commands.

The article reinforces this concept and makes a point of highlighting the fact that there is a fine motor requirement in SC2. Someone with awful motor capacity will never compete with someone able to finely control and issue hundreds of finger commands based on suspected, highly plastic corticospinal neuronal plasticity. I agree with you and Talismania that obviously there is higher-order, pre-frontal processing that occurs, and this processing must happen very quickly and efficiently in order to be "the best" SC2 player. I agree that in order to REALLY be the absolute best at the game, one would have to perfect the processing that occurs on the higher-order level of thought. However, that is only relevant to the "strategy" component of RTS. The issue I'm addressing is relevant to the "real-time" component of SC2. In other words, NMP technology will not improve a chess player, given that chess has no "real-time" component like SC2 -- there is no "motor requirement" in chess. In SC2, however, the "real-time" component is tackled by endowing players with the ability to immediately enact commands at much higher rates than normal rate. Consequently, their play is only fettered by the higher order cognition to which you refer.

So in a nutshell: If this tech is pursued the way I see it, you'd have a "real-time" strategy game game whereby the "real-time" component is actually closer to real-time in that every command you desire is realized immediately, rather than lagging by the process of you issuing single, rapid commands towards achieving a larger action or immediate goal. With regard to your second emboldened point, I argue that due to this lightening of burden, there is an increase in focus that can be given to the higher-order, strategical planning center. As a result, players can execute better, more fluid play. I agree that these changes would be consistent with each group, but my goal is not to pit NMP-assisted players vs. normal players. The goal is to analyze NMP-assisted players in comparison to themselves. One could analyze 1,000 games from Mvp using an NMP and see if his overall gameplay is significantly effected. I would be extremely surprised if it wasn't altered vastly due to all the reasons above, thus I'm really interested in this idea.


Thanks for the reply.

Cortical plasticity has been demonstrated in humans and other animals in response to altered behavior. If you had a drop off in one requirement of the game -- the motor requirement -- do you agree that it would be possible for one to become better at the other aspects of the game (intake and processing ability)? The cortical topography corresponding to higher-order processing could be expanded in response to a loss of the specificity required to implement such motor functions playing SC2. Therefore I think an NMP's effect on playing SC2 transcends mere mechanical advantage. Instead, I think the mechanical advantage conferred by an NMP will then further enable a player to drastically improve on the "cognitive", abstract processing involved in make choices in the game, given that the player is free to devote all playing capacity to that one area. I do believe this area could be pushed to a greater limit with less neuronal circuitry devoted to the motor component of the game.

On December 02 2011 18:07 Derity wrote:
The article doesn't tell anything new. Brain activity should look like the one of a musician. Pilots should have a pretty good 3d imagination as well and also have a good crisis management.
I don't expect anything new from these studies about multitasking, only that games can be useful to train multitasking at a specific environment. So playing starcraft doesn't give you any better multitasking as team sports or sth else.

On December 02 2011 09:44 Zzoram wrote:
Basically they found APM and multitasking were the most strongly associated with winning. This suggests that mechanics are still the most important thing for a player in SC2.

On December 09 2011 03:59 Snuggles wrote:
Jenny Bates comments on that article are such BS =_=. At the highest levels of play there are very very legitimate examples of multitasking. Not mindless spamming, god we finished that argument a while ago.