Tetris is undoubtedly one of the most
successful game franchises of history. 100 million copies of Tetris have been
downloaded to cell phones, a special edition has sold for over $15,000, and a
man in England was once jailed for 4 months for playing the cell phone version
on an flight, "endangering the safety of the aircraft". (Guinness
World Records 2011, 2010, 2008).
Why the addiction to Tetris? Standard models in
psychology and in game theory have proposed reasons for such fascination. Tom
Stafford of "Neurohacks" recently accumulated these reasons in an
article "The Psychology of Tetris".
One of these reasons first drew attention in
the early 20th century. In the 1930s, a Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik,
noticed that busy waiters had near perfect memory of orders--up until the food
was delivered. Once the orders were complete, they were, for the most part,
instantly forgotten. Zeigarnik hypothesized that the waiters could remember the
orders only when they were serving because of the potency of incomplete transactions. She
theorized a phenomenon where unfinished tasks hold our attention by clinging to
active memory until they are completed.
Zeignarik followed up her observations by
measuring such retention in a lab setting: she asked participants to complete
small tasks and afterwards asked which ones they remembered doing. Some
participants were interrupted while completing their tasks, others were not,
and ultimately, those who were interrupted remembered more activities. Such
disparity supported her theories: incomplete tasks, no matter how trivial, tend
to nag at our subconscious and cling to our active memories until they are
resolved. After resolution, we quickly lose these memories. The Zeignarik
Effect now is used to describe how tension created by incomplete transactions
affects our
The Zeigamik Effect can be used to explain why
the game holds our attention so well. Combined with our natural proclivity to
clean up messes (Stafford snarks, "Many
human games are basically ritualized tidying up"), the Zeigarnik
Effect explains that a falling Tetris block bothers us until the block has
found its place on the ground. As soon as that one task is complete, the game
presents us with another challenge that picks at our brain until complete, and
we can't escape.
Since then, the Zeigarmik Effect has been
studied in numerous contexts. Stafford talks about quiz shows commanding
attention because of irritation caused by not knowing answers to proposed questions.
The effect may suggest that study breaks, offer interruptions in long sessions
of memorization, are beneficial to learning. Other experiments have shown that
the "nagging" on our active memory helps us avoid procrastination.
The effect has moreover been studied to
understand traumatic memory. Many believe the tension created by an
unresolved traumatic experience can provoke unwanted memories. Until this
tension is relieved by talking about experiences or writing down stories,
victims are more likely to relieve events.
Controversy has arose concerning the validity
of Zeignarik's conclusions, and the reason for the effect still remains a
mystery. One explanation theorizes that some designs in the brain encourage
attentiveness and goal-orientation. While such attentiveness may prove
essential for completing tasks, it may have unwarranted effects. In Stafford's
words, "Like a clever parasite,
Tetris takes advantage of the mind's basic pleasure in getting things done and
uses it against us".
Sources:
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