Short-term effects of playing a puzzle game on problem
solving
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE
André Dirks
11154195MASTER INFORMATION STUDIES
GAME STUDIES
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM
July 29, 2016
1st Supervisor 2nd Supervisor
Bart Hufen Dr. Frank Nack
2
Short-term effects of playing a puzzle game on problem
solving
André Dirks
University of Amsterdam (UvA) Burgemeester Hogguerstraat 763
andre.dirks92@googlemail.com
ABSTRACT
In this study an experiment is conducted that set out to see if playing a puzzle game, in this case Unblock, would positively influence subsequent performance on the well-researched Tower
of Hanoi. The motivation for this study was the interest in
possible short-term effects of games on problem solving. While the experimental group did play Unblock before playing the
Tower of Hanoi, the control group only played the latter game.
Results indicate no immediate effect of the experimental condition on problem solving. Correlational analysis showed a possible interaction effect between videogame experience and the two conditions. However, due to a small sample size and a potential sample bias, this finding can only be treated as a lead for future research. No valid conclusions concerning the relationship can be drawn from this study. Limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed in detail.
General Terms
Experimentation, Computer games, Surveys and overviews, Performance
Keywords
Problem solving, cognition, games, benefits
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Fluid intelligence vs crystallized intelligence
Videogames bear great potential when it comes to teaching people new skills, educating them or even supporting people in dealing with illnesses. Games draw their benefits from a couple of properties. Games are engaging and can keep players focused over an extended period of time. The mastery of games makes us feel autonomous and competent, which explains the motivation to play video games [18]. Games make the player explore the rules, the boundaries of what can be done within the game, within a safe environment. If there is an overlap between the game situation and a real life situation, the rules learnt can be transferred into the real world. Virtual Reality will only spur the current development of using games for other purposes than entertainment. However, even in the entertainment branch of video gaming there have been quite a few games in the last decade, which claim to train the player’s brain. These games usually provide the player with mini-games that involve math problems, logical problems or memory tasks. Then there are puzzle games like the iconic Portal1. Puzzle games primarily focus on problem solving. In psychological terms, facts and procedures are part of crystallized intelligence. The counterpart is fluid intelligence, which refers to a person’s1 http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/portal.html
capability to reason, to solve problems and to learn. So if one were to learn a poem by heart, the actual knowledge of all the phrases in the poem would be classified as crystallized intelligence. However, the actual ability of learning a poem by heart depends on fluid intelligence (i.e. how fast one is going to learn the poem). This distinction was first proposed by Raymond B. Cattell, one of the major researchers of intelligence in the last century [6]. He later defined both types of intelligence further [7]. To this day, this distinction is generally accepted in psychology literature, though there are more distinctions. While researchers are focused on digital game-based learning (DGBL) and the way to utilize its benefits in education, the influence of videogames on fluid intelligence is often neglected.
Adachi and Willoughby [2] point out that studies that look at the relationship between video game play and problem solving skills do not exist at the time of their paper. Today, three years later, later this observation does still hold, if their own paper is excluded. They took it upon themselves to investigate the relationship. They looked at almost 1.500 students over four consecutive years in high school and how their frequency of playing video games was correlated to reported problem solving skills as well as their academic grades. They found that students who played strategic games were reporting higher problem solving skills as opposed to students who did not play videogames or only FPS games, which mostly do not involve strategic reasoning. Opposed to the longitudinal effects of strategic video games on problem solving, we are more interested in the immediate effects of playing a videogame. Could playing a puzzle game prepare us to solve another problem in the immediate future? Kinney [15] points in a certain direction by noting that problem solving is a skill that develops over time and with sustained practice. Still, it is worth to put this to a test.
This paper will review the research on benefits of videogames in general. Afterwards, the Tower of Hanoi will be addressed and why it is an interesting tool for research about problem solving. Next, the research questions will be briefly explained. Then, the paper will present an experiment aimed at answering the research questions. Finally, there will be a discussion on potential applications of the findings and on further research considering the potential of videogames.
1.2 Related Work
One of the first researchers to look at the potential benefits of videogames was Patricia Greenfield in the 1980s [14]. She noted that she was impressed with the cognitive load that was inflicted upon the player playing something as simple as Pac-Man. Cognitive load describes the amount of effort the human brain uses in order to keep up with a task at hand, like creating shopping lists or playing games. Her statement underlines the aspect of stimulation in the process of playing a game. A game does not need to be highly complex like modern First-Person Shooters
3 (FPS)(i.e. Call of Duty2) to be stimulating. However, playing FPS games has been proven to positively impact working memory [8] and cognitive flexibility [9], which is defined as the ability to change focus between various mental constructs [19]. Moreover, research by Wu, Cheng, Feng, D’Angelo, Alain and Spence [23] suggests that these benefits have their origin in changes to the neurons of the players.
Screenshot 1. A game called “Battleborn”. The community actually criticized the amount of effects on the screen.
So playing FPS games may literally change the connections in the brain. Looking at the amount of information and effects the brain has to process while playing these demanding games, it should not be surprising that playing these games may alter some brain structures. Still there are games, which focus on less game mechanics and can engage the player despite minimalistic design. Even these games can stimulate the human brain to a large extent, as Patricia Greenfield implied. Agar.io3 and its variants are a modern example for this. These games are so minimalistic they can run in any browser at any time, if there is a connection to the Internet. In Agar.io the player is represented as a circle on a 2D background. The player moves the circle in order to consume other smaller circles, also other players. At the same time, the player has to take care to not be consumed by the larger circles or rather other players. This is the basic gist of the game, yet Agar.io and its successors are highly popular. Of course, the ease of attaining the game does play a role as well, but it is safe to assume that players, who do not feel engaged in the simplicity of this game, would leave it after the first failures and never return. Similarly, to get back to Greenfield’s research, in Pac-Man the player has to distinguish between different “ghosts” based on their color and has to develop an understanding of the behavior of these “ghosts”, which enables players to come up with a strategy. As a result, she noted that video games might be able to influence the development of cognitive as well as visuospatial skills. Visuospatial skills is a term for the ability to perceive objects, distinguish between multiple objects and understand their spatial relationships with one another. Since then many studies looked at the difference in these skills between people who play games on a regular basis and people who rarely play [2, 4]. General consensus is that video games do enhance cognitive skills. Green and Bavelier [11] tested gamers and non-gamers on their spatial distribution of attention and concluded that gamers had more attentional resources available than non-gamers. Boot, Kramer, Simons, Fabiani and Gratton [5] had non-gamers play three
2 https://www.callofduty.com/
3 http://agar.io/
different types of games for longer than 20 hours and then tested their performance on measures of attention, memory and executive control against expert gamers. They found that the non-gamers did not become better on the measures after playing any of the three types of games (Action, Puzzle, Strategy) and also could not keep up with expert players. These results might indicate that there is some other difference between the two groups other than video games that accounts for the different levels of cognitive skills, since playing these games for 20+ hours did not change the measures in non-gamers. One could also conclude that the time played was not enough to lead to any changes in the cognitive skills, meaning that video games only enhance the cognitive skills tested if played over a long period of time.
Screenshot 2. A game of Agar.io. The different names represent different players.
Subrahmanyam and Greenfield [21] tested the influence of video games on spatial skills in children. After a pretest, the experimental group was designated to play a came called Marble
Madness4 for 45 minutes repeatedly on three different days. The game requires the player to maneuver a marble through a 3D environment which is filled with many different obstacles, including heinous turns and AI controlled enemies. The procedure was the same for the control group, however, the participants in the control group played a game called Conjecture5, a word game which does not involve any spatial skills. After the sessions concluded, the post test was administered to all participants. The results showed that Marble Madness led to a powerful enhancement of dynamic spatial skills, especially in those participants who scored lower on the pretest. This also means that children with good spatial skills did not improve much, when pre- and post-test results were compared. Moreover, their analysis showed that overall video game performance in the experiment was predicted by the pretest results, which indicates that strong spatial skills enable one to master a video game to a greater extent.
4http://www.arcademuseum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8618 5 Conjecture. (1986). [Computer program]. Auburn, WA: Robert
4
Screenshot 3. A part of a level of the game “Marble Madness”. The blue marble on the right represents the player
Another study by Green and Bavelier [13] looked at the claim that people playing action video games are able to keep track of more objects in their sight than people who do not play these games. They used the so-called enumeration task, a classical tool in research, to test the amount of objects the subjects were able to apprehend. In this task, participants declare the amount of briefly flashed items on a screen as fast and accurate as possible. They summarize their findings by stating that gamers were able to report more items before an accuracy drop occurred and that gamers in general were more accurate across all trials than non-gamers. However, they do point out that video games may be more attractive to people with high visual skills to begin with and that video games may not necessary contribute to visual skill acquisition. This is a common concern among studies that investigate the differences between gamers and non-gamers on certain skills.
Granic, Lobel & Engels [10] argue in their review of the benefits of video games that video games teach the incremental theory of intelligence, supposedly the theory of intelligence that is more motivating. People who follow an incremental theory of intelligence believe that intelligence is a fluid concept based on efforts and dedication opposed to people believing in the entity theory of intelligence, which basically says that intelligence is fixed and cannot be changed by an individual. Outside of a game environment, the theory embraced is influenced by whether individuals are praised for their efforts (e.g. “You worked hard for this grade!”) or for being intelligent (e.g. “You are a smart boy!”). When someone starts a new videogame, the new in-game environment may be too much to handle at first, though game designers try to ease new players into the new concepts and rules integrated in the game carefully. The player becomes more acquainted with the game mechanics over time and is at one point an expert in said game. This inherent process of becoming better in a video game by putting effort and time into it represents the core of the incremental theory of intelligence.
In his book From digital natives to digital wisdom [17], Prensky
suggests that exposure to video games inherently stimulates problem solving as problem-solving is virtually present in every genre due to the lack of direct instructions in most games, which in turn gives the player the opportunity to solve parts of levels using their own reasoning. As mentioned before, there has not been much work on problem solving and the influence of video gaming on this particular skill. However, his statement has some face validity. Games usually give the player an objective to work towards to. The player has to make it from A to B with certain
resources as well as specific movement options at the player’s disposal. In some games enemies stand in the way towards point B and the player has to make his way through using the environment, certain abilities and weapons. Most of the time there is more than one way to make it to the objective, but even if there is only one way the player needs to figure out that particular way. There are also games that do not provide the player with a clear objective, for instance so-called sandbox games e.g. Minecraft. However, in these games the player creates an objective for himself and hence will take action to move towards that goal. A certain amount of skill, apart from problem solving is required to effectively play videogames. Reaction time and controller/ keyboard mastery are beyond important for any kind of first-person-shooter. Still tactical foresight and planning make success less dependent on those skills and may make the difference between victory and defeat in some games.
The Tower of Hanoi has been used frequently to gain insights into the way we plan ahead in order to solve problems ever since the information-processing perspective emerged in the 1970s. Anderson and Douglass [3] give a brief description of the Tower
of Hanoi. “There are three pegs and four disks of differing sizes. The disks have holes in them, so they can be stacked on the pegs. The disks can be moved from any peg to any other peg. Only the top disk on a peg can be moved, and it can never be placed on a smaller disk. The disks all start out on peg A, but the goal is to move them all to peg C, one disk at a time, by means of transferring disks among pegs.”
Screenshot 4. The starting position of Tower of Hanoi with 9 disks
There are a couple of ways to solve this problem. Simon [20] differentiates between four major strategies, a goal-recursion strategy, a perceptual strategy, a sophisticated perceptual strategy and a move-pattern strategy. He further points out that the different strategies come with different requirements. For instance, the goal-recursion strategy requires the problem solver to retain the goals in short-term memory, while obtaining the sub goals. Problem solvers either engage in a specific strategy from the get-go or they learn to use a certain approach while they solve the puzzle [20]. One specific component that makes the Tower of
Hanoi fascinating is the fact that one undoubtedly has to go two
steps backwards to make one step forward. This means that, if a disk is at peg C, its “ultimate destination”, the disk has to be moved to another peg so that the other disks can also reach peg C. In a formerly very popular puzzle game, called Unblock, similar principles are at work. In this game blocks block a red block’s exit. The aim of the game is to change the positioning of the blocks so that the way is free for the red block. The blocks differ
5 in length and in orientation. The blocks can move exclusively horizontally or vertically depending on their orientation.
Screenshot 5. A level of the game Unblock at the starting position
The question is how does playing this game, Unblock, influence the immediate performance on the Tower of Hanoi. Will Unblock prime participants to use a more effective strategy in the Tower of
Hanoi? Does playing Unblock simply serve as a “warm-up” in
this context? Could Unblock even hinder solving the Tower of
Hanoi as resources are already depleted or wrong strategies are
going to be used? Or may Unblock even prime the wrong approach for the Tower of Hanoi problem and hence make the task harder? As mentioned before, Kinney makes a case for problem solving skills developing over time and with repeated practice, so based on that account there should be no benefit from playing Unblock before trying to handle the Tower of Hanoi problem. However, Orosy-Fildes and Allan [16] showed that merely 15 minutes of practice with a game (on an Atari 2600 system back then), led to a reduction in reaction time compared to the pre-test of about 50 milliseconds. A reduction called “truly remarkable” by Green and Bavelier [12] based on the short amount of practice. Obviously, something like reaction time is different than problem solving skills, especially in the context of videogames. Still, the question if a puzzle game may have immediate consequences on the performance on the Tower of
Hanoi problem remains intriguing and deserves to be tested.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION AND
HYPOTHESES
Based on the literature the following research question(RQ) is proposed:
“Does playing the puzzle game "Unblock" influence the performance on the Tower of Hanoi problem and how do other factors possibly influence the performance?”
Performance can be measured by turns and time needed to solve the Tower of Hanoi as well as the specific strategy the participant used. The key performance indicator is, however, the amount of disks the participant is able to move. The first hypothesis predicts participants, who play Unblock prior to the Tower of Hanoi, to need less time than the control group. If anything, the game will loosen the participants up to do some trial and error practice, which may eventually lead to a faster understanding of the Tower
of Hanoi problem. However, the second hypothesis is that the
participants of the control group will need less turns than the group playing Unblock first. Participants who did not play
Unblock first, may play more reserved and plan their turns more
carefully as opposed to the Unblock group, who engage in playful behavior. This playful behavior might as well lead to more disks being moved by the participants in the experimental group, which is the third hypothesis. In line with the research about the benefits of playing games previously presented, the fourth hypothesis states that the reported hours spent playing videogames per week will be a strong indicator for performance (i.e. the number of disks maximally moved). The final hypothesis is exclusively for the experimental group and predicts that the performance in the first game will be correlated to the performance in Tower of
Hanoi. Since the games were chosen because of their seemingly
similar process, it is reasonable to assume that performance in one is related to the performance in the other game. In summary, the sub-questions are:
SQ1: Will participants in the experimental group spend
more time playing the “Tower of Hanoi” than the participants in the control group?
SQ2: Will participants in the control group use fewer
turns in the “Tower of Hanoi” than the participants in the experimental group?
SQ3: Will the experimental group achieve a better
performance, as measured by the number of disks maximally achieved moved, in the “Tower of Hanoi”?
SQ4: How strong is the relationship between reported
hours per week playing videogames and the performance, as measured by the amount of disks maximally moved?
SQ5: In the experimental group, is the relationship between the performance in the first game and the performance in the second game significant?
2. METHODS
2.1 Participants
48 people aged between 15 and 57 participated in the experiment (M = 25.6, SD = 6.6). The sample is composed of 72% of men and 28% of women, which corresponds to the total values of 34 men and 13 women. One respondent didn’t indicate his or her gender. The majority of the participants noted American as their nationality, which corresponds to 25% of the sample. 20.8% of the sample were German and another 20.8% were Dutch. The rest can be summarized as other nationalities. In total, there were at least 12 different nationalities. The participants agreed to take part in the study voluntarily and did not stand to gain anything from participation.
2.2 Materials
For the experiment a new survey was created, based on the data deemed relevant for answering the research question. The survey software of qualtrics.com was used with a free trial version. Participants were asked to indicate if they had played Unblock before, what their favorite gaming platforms are, how many hours they usually spent playing video games during a week and what their favorite genre of video game is. Additionally, participants were asked for their demographic data like age, gender and their nationality. Moreover, the participants had to note down how many levels of Unblock they had finished as well as the amount of
6 turns they played in Tower of Hanoi. Lastly, a Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS)[22] was included and the participants had to fill it in before they started playing the Tower of Hanoi. SUDS is commonly used in psychological research to assess the mental state of a participant at the time of the game. For the control group the unnecessary Unblock questions were deleted. Browser versions of both games were researched and subsequently used in the online survey.
2.3 Design
This study uses a single factor design with only one independent variable, which is either playing Unblock before the rest of the experiment or not playing Unblock at all. The dependent variables are manifold. The amount of turns per minute and the amount of disks placed on their ultimate destination. The time played is also an important factor as it is expected that some participants may give up before the 15-minute mark.
2.4 Procedure
The participants were given the informed consent form, which explained the goal of the research as well as the general procedure of the experiment. A task description for the game Unblock was included and followed by more instructions, where and how long to play the game. The browser version used came with its own description of the rules. Next, the participants filled out the Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS). This is also where the experiment started for the control group. Then the participants were asked to fill in basic demographic data (age, gender, nationality) as well as the favorite gaming platform and gaming genre along the amount of hours they usually played games per week. If the participants were in the experimental group, they also noted down the amount of levels they completed in Unblock during the 10 minutes. The survey was followed by a short task description of the Tower of Hanoi and a short explanation to the basic rules of the game. Again, the browser version gave a concise description of the rules to the game and irregular moves are not possible in the browser version. Moreover, the browser version keeps track of the number of turns participants played, so players have an easier time reporting the number of moves.
Screenshot 6. Instructions given right before the start of the game “Tower of Hanoi”
Finally, when the participants were done with playing the Tower
of Hanoi, they were asked to indicate how many disks they were
able to move away from the original position in a sequence of closed questions (i.e. “Did you move the disk labeled 5 at all?”), how many moves they had played and how long they had played the game in seconds, as indicated by the browser version.
3. RESULTS
3.1 Preliminary Analysis
The participants were asked to play the Tower of Hanoi for 15 minutes. The version the participants played showed the amount of time spent in seconds. The survey software allows to see the duration of the survey from first clicking the link that redirects to the survey to the submission of the form. The exclusion of extremely low duration times was deemed reasonable. The threshold chosen was 10 minutes as anything below that threshold would be an expression of lack of willingness or ignorance towards the instructions. This way 16 datasets were excluded by default. The eventual data consisted of datasets of 48 participants, 29 of which were in the experimental group, while 19 were in the control group.
The variables of primary interest were NumberOfDisks (the amount of disks the participants were able to move within the time-frame), TowerTime (the amount of time in seconds the participant played Tower of Hanoi) and TowerMoves (the amount of moves made during the Tower of Hanoi session). These three variables were used to calculate three more compound variables.
MoveEfficiency was calculated by dividing TowerMoves by NumberOfDisks, so it is known how many moves were made on
average per disk moved away from its original position. This was of partial interest due to the increasing difficulty of the game the farther a player gets. The researcher was concerned of a potential performance drop due to a failure to sustain attention. This variable controls for it to a certain extent. Another variable that was calculated is MovesPerSecond. This was done to control for the potential of people using more or less moves simply because of the longer time they spent playing the game. The variable was calculated by dividing TowerTime by TowerMoves.
At last, the “perfect” performance was calculated to check for impossible datasets, participants who had achieved their performance impossibly quick. The variable DeviationFromBest was created by looking at how many moves a person has to make at least in order to get to the achieved number of disks. This number was then subtracted from TowerMoves depending on the variable NumberOfDisks. Interestingly enough six participants turned out to have used less moves than necessary to get to the amount of disks they reported. To be more specific, the participants used between 11 and 88 moves less than even possible to achieve the performance they reported. This was either a failure of transferring the data correctly or is a testament to the failure of taking the survey seriously. Nevertheless, the data was excluded as these datasets were not likely to be valid or reliable, which led to a new sample of 42 participants of which 24 were in the experimental group and 18 in the control group.
7
Figure 2. Histogram of the moves per second
Extensive exploration of the five variables of interest suggested that only TowerMoves and MovesPerSecond approximately follow a normal distribution based on the histograms, which can be seen in Figure 1 and Figure 2, and boxplots, which are shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Boxplot of the amount of moves used (left) and moves per second (right)
This outcome is rooted in the nature of the data that was used.
TowerTime, for example, was in most cases at 900 seconds (M = 812.62, SD = 201.2), since the participants were asked to spend
this amount of time playing the game and most of the participants complied. NumberOfDisks has a very restricted range, which goes from one to nine in theory and is thus a discrete variable. In practice the game is quite simple in the beginning and 15 minutes is a long time. The participants with the worst performance made it to disk four, while the participants with the best performance made it to disk nine. The average performance was at about 7 disks (M = 7.12, SD = 1.33). The distributions of TowerTime and
NumberOfDisks can be seen in Figure 5 and Figure 6. MoveEfficiency follows a very skewed distribution as the
histogram in Figure 7 shows. The mean MoveEfficiency is at about 22 (M = 22.13, SD = 19.17), so on average the participants made 22 moves per new disk they were able to move.
TowerTime
NumberOfDisks
MoveEfficiency
Figure 4. Histograms for the variables TowerTime, NumberOfDisks and MoveEfficiency
Levene’s test was applied to every single one of the five variables to check if the assumption of homogeneity was violated.
TowerMoves (p = .926), MovesPerSecond (p = .937), NumberOfDisks (p = .957) and MoveEfficiency (p = .868) do not
violate the assumption of homogeneity of variance. The assumption of equal variances is, however, violated for the variable TowerTime (p = .004).
Based on the outcome of the previous tests which served to check for the assumptions that were and were not met, an independent two-sample t-test was applied to the variables TowerMoves and
MovesPerSecond. The non-parametric alternative to the two-
Table 1. Non-parametric statistical tests
TowerTime NumberOfDisks MoveEfficiency
Mann-Whitney 164 177.5 199 Wilcoxon W 464 348.5 370 Z - 1.77 - 1.022 - .432 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .077 .307 .666
8 sample t-test, the Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test (also called Mann-Whitney test), was used on the variables TowerTime,
NumberOfDisks and MoveEfficiency.
3.2 Statistical tests
Table 2. Parametric statistical tests
The null hypothesis for the following tests is that there is indeed a difference between the control group and the experimental group. The t-test for TowerMoves gives reason to retain the null hypothesis ( t(40) = - 1.33, p = .19 , d = 0.14 ). The p-value of the t-test for MovesPerSecond is also not significant (t (40) = - .43, p = .67, d = .041), which leads to the assumption that there are no significant differences between the control group and the experimental group on these two variables. The results can be seen in Table 2.
The null hypothesis for non-parametric tests is that the distribution of a particular variable in one group is different from the distribution of the same variable of another group. Since overall distributions are being compared instead of the means, these tests underlie fewer assumptions and are more robust than parametric tests when normality of the data and/or equal variances cannot be assumed, as is the case for the other variables.
The null hypothesis for NumberOfDisks cannot be rejected (U = 177.5, p = .307, r = .18). The same goes for MoveEfficiency (U = 199, p = .666, r = .08). However, TowerTime seems to be marginally significant (U = 164, p = .077, r = .24). So there is some evidence for the argument that the time participants played the Tower of Hanoi was different for the two groups. Comparing the means for the control group (M = 875, SD = 98.83) and the experimental group (M = 765.83, SD = 244.16) concerning the
variable TowerTime, the direction becomes clear. These results are displayed in Table 1.
It seems like the participants in experimental group kept their session, on average, shorter than the control group. A marginally significant outcome can only be regarded as an indication that a larger sample size might have led to a significant p-value. The result itself is non-significant.
3.3 Correlations
The survey gave a lot more data than what has been discussed yet. An overview of correlations is presented in Table 3. The participants in the experimental group were asked to write down the level number they were at when the ten-minute session was over. The variable is called UnblockLevel and is only made up of data gathered from the experimental group. The highest level achieved, on average, is level 12 with a standard deviation of about 4 levels (SD = 3.86). Participants were also asked to write down how many hours per week they usually spent playing videogames. The variable is constructed of nine categories, which were coded from zero to eight (0 = “I do not play games frequently”; 8 = “More than 15 hours”) and is called
HoursPerWeek. On average, the sample reported that they played
around eight to ten hours per week (M = 5.29, SD = 2.72). Further, a common scale in psychological research was used, the subjective units of distress scale (SUDS). This scale is used to assess the state of mood via six simple ratings on certain moods. Three of these six questions are concerned with positive emotions, which are “happy”, “relaxed” and “confident”. The other three have more negative connotations, such as feeling “angry”, “sad” and “anxious”. A reliability analysis was conducted to check if it was reasonable to make two subscales of these six variables. Cronbach’s alphas for the positive mood states and the negative mood states were .73 and .62, respectively. Based on the reliability, the researcher created the two subscales called “SUDSpos” (M = 165.24, SD = 45.33) and “SUDSneg” (M = 66.19, SD = 55.43). A value close to zero for the variable is “SUDSpos” means that the person is not feeling good at all, while
Variable N t df p-value
(2-tailed)
TowerMoves 48 - .429 40 .67
MovesPerSecond 48 – 1.334 40 .19
HoursPerWeek TowerTime NumberOfDisks TowerMoves UnblockLevel HoursPerWeek Pearson Correlation 1 .001 .362 .366 .405
Sig. (2-tailed) .995 .019 .017 .050
N 42 42 42 42 24
TowerTime Pearson Correlation .001 1 .713 .471 .236
Sig. (2-tailed) .995 .000 .002 .266
N 42 42 42 42 24
NumberOfDisks Pearson Correlation .362 .583 1 .713 .435
Sig. (2-tailed) .019 .000 .000 .034
N 42 42 42 42 24
TowerMoves Pearson Correlation .366 .471 .713 1 .413
Sig. (2-tailed) .017 .002 .000 .045
N 42 42 42 42 24
UnblockLevel Pearson Correlation .405 .236 .435 .413 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .050 .266 .034 .045
N 42 42 42 42 24
9 a high value indicates very good mood. For the variable “SUDSneg”, a high value corresponds to not feeling good, while a very low value means that the person is not feeling bad at all. Assessing the state of mood is important, because the data and the relationships can be controlled for the mood of the participant, a potentially substantial influence on performance.
HoursPerWeek is significantly correlated with TowerMoves (r = 0.365, p = .021) and NumberOfDisks (r = .352, p = .026). Looking at the nature of the game, it is to be expected that more moves may be correlated to a better performance. In the experimental group, the variable UnblockLevel is significantly correlated with
NumberOfDisks at an alpha level of .05. To be more specific, the
correlation is 0.455 and the p-value is 0.034. HoursPerWeek is also significantly correlated with UnblockLevel at an alpha level .05 (r = .448, p = .037). More correlations for the experimental group can be seen in Table 4. All correlations have been controlled for the two subscales representing mood.
4. DISCUSSION
4.1 Summary of Findings & Explanation
This experiment looked at the impact of the puzzle game Unblock on the performance on the Tower of Hanoi as measured by different variables, such as the amount of moves made while playing the Tower of Hanoi and the number of disks that were moved from their original positions. In order to measure the impact of playing Unblock, one group, the experimental group, did play the game and one group did only play the Tower of
Hanoi puzzle, but not the game Unblock. The latter group is
called the control group. The statistical tests did not reveal any significant differences between the control group, the participants who only played the game Tower of Hanoi, and the experimental group, the participants who also played a version of Unblock before they played Tower of Hanoi. Neither did participants in the experimental group use significantly fewer turns than their counterparts in the control group (SQ2), nor did the experimental group outperform the control group (SQ3). There is one marginally significant difference between the groups and that is the amount of time each group spent playing the game (SQ1). Despite the instructions of playing the game for 15 minutes (or 900 seconds), it was expected that not all participants would be this persistent, hence participants were asked to indicate how many seconds they had played based on the timer of the version of
Table 4. Correlation-Matrix for the experimental group
Tower of Hanoi they played. The control group played longer than
the experimental group. This finding can be attributed to a lack of sustained attention, a lack of time or the fatigue that was experienced from playing both games. The control group only had
to play the one game, which was supposed to take 15 minutes at maximum, while the experimental group had already played another game for ten minutes before. It is easy to see how the extended amount of effort that had to be spent by the experimental group had an effect of their willingness to play the Tower of
Hanoi for the full 15 minutes.
Correlational analysis then showed that the hours per week spent playing are correlated to a few outcome variables, such as the amount of moves used in the game as well as the number of disks achieved, a performance indicator. This means that gaming experience had an impact on performance to a large extent (SQ4). Looking at how far the participants in the experimental group progressed in the game that only they had to play and the hours per weeks spent playing games per week supports the notion further that experience was a key to good performance in this study. It could be argued that more specifically the frequent exposure to games prepared the brain for solving these kinds of puzzle games that were used in the study. This is only speculation. Another argument that can be made is that the participants, who play games more frequently, developed more confidence in their “gaming skills” or a specific mindset that is more open to experimentation. There are plenty more possible explanations for the effect of game experience on game performance. Also, the amount of levels finished in the first game and the number of disks successfully moved are significantly related (SQ5). Interestingly, the correlation between hours per week and the number of disks is way weaker for the experimental group than for the overall sample. This may be an indication for the influence of the game played prior to the Tower of Hanoi. The impact of experience of videogames was weaker in the experimental condition, than it was for the control group. So it may seem that playing a game prior to Tower of Hanoi, brought people who were less experienced up to par with those who are more experienced, hence the relationship between hours per week spent playing games and the number of disks achieved weakened. However, this can only be perceived as very weak evidence since small sample sizes do not allow researchers to come to valid conclusions concerning correlations. Moreover, exploration of the data revealed a sampling bias in the sense that almost 50% of participants in the control group indicated that they played more than 15 hours per week, while the experimental group was more mixed and balanced in regards to videogame experience. Still, this is an interesting finding, because it gives future studies with a larger sample size a hint what relationships to look out for.
4.2 Limitations
The fact that the data was gathered online is a huge limitation for a study like the one presented here. No researcher or research assistant was present while the data was gathered, so there is the possibility for the participants to just not follow the instructions conscientiously and hence make mistakes. The survey did not have any scales in place to control for thoughtful reading of the instructions. Based on the amount of data that could be excluded on the basis of the little time spent on the survey, there may have been other participants who did not read the instructions thoughtfully and made it into the eventual sample that was analyzed. Further, the impossible performance of six participants, which were also excluded from the analysis, is another indicator for this. Another downside of doing this study over the Internet is that the environment the participant was in whilst taking part in the study was not at all controlled for. A participant might have been at a noisy workplace, in their study at home where it is silent, in the living room, where other people may interfere or the
Unblock Level HoursPer Week NumberOf Disks HoursPer Week .448 1 .095 p .037 .675 N 20 0 20 NumberOf Disks .455 .095 1 p .034 .675 N 20 20 0
10 participant may have just listened to music, a podcast or an audiobook during the experiment, hence compromising their own possible best performance. These environmental factors were not controlled at all and no questions were included in the survey concerning the environment the participant was in while taking part in the study.
The exclusion of relatively many datasets (22 in total), led to a smaller sample than originally expected, though the overall sample size is still acceptable. However, the sample size of the control group is below 20, which is sub-optimal. Since the two conditions were equally often distributed, it was unexpected to see the differences in the eventual sample sizes of the two groups, especially prior to excluding the participants with the impossible performance (five participants of the experimental group and one from the control group were excluded). It could be speculated that the experimental group was immediately more drawn into the study or was simply more committed after having played
Unblock, a more fast-paced game than Tower of Hanoi. Many
participants may have experienced a lack of stimulation from the
Tower of Hanoi as it does not have levels or a reward schedule,
which may have led to boredom and early dropout.
Moreover, the sample diversity may be lacking. Looking at the hours per week data, it’s clear that there were many “gamers” among the participants. This might be due to being more prone to participate in things that actually interest us (i.e. gaming). Gamers were, perhaps, also more likely to share the study. Another possibility is that the sample was more diverse, but that many non-gamers dropped out of the study early due to reasons explained earlier (i.e. “boring” game/ puzzle). It may have been wise to actively seek out non-gamers during the research progress. Moreover, more hardcore gamers were in the control group as compared to the experimental group. However, the term non-gamer would have to be defined first. Games these days are more popular than they were in the past. This is partially due to the advent of smartphones, which enabled many people who never touched a console or a PC game, to explore the hobby called gaming. Candy crush, Words with Friends and Angry Birds are names that even the older generations know today. So the dichotomy between gamer and non-gamer may not be as clear-cut anymore as it used to be.
The survey required self-report data from the participants. This usually introduces a few biases, such as the social desirability bias, which means to portray oneself better than one actually is. This might have an impact on the reporting of the scores. The participants may not have been happy with their results, so they tweaked them a little bit to make the results less “embarrassing”. Others may have not submitted their data as a result of being disappointed with their own performance. The impossible performance of six participants, who were then excluded from the analysis, may be an expression of this social desirability bias.
A large proportion of the analysis was looking into correlations of the different variables. During the analysis it is easy to forget that correlation does not equal causality. So even if there were some significant correlations, they should not be judged as anything more than promising. There may be a third variable, which was not taking into account in the survey, which explains both ends of the relationship. Then the correlation would merely reflect the connection to that third variable not necessarily the relationship between the first and the second variable. Another problem is that some things are correlated with one another when there is no
relation at all; it is just a chance occurrence. It is worthy pointing out that the relationships tested do have a basis in the general consent of researchers in this area as shown in the literature review of this study. This means that these correlational analyses should also not be completely disregarded due to the aforementioned problems.
4.3 Future Research
Researchers interested in the short-term effects of playing videogames are advised to test their hypothesis on a large sample size. Sample size is often times a restricting factor for many researchers. However, as mentioned before, this topic of the influence of videogames on problem solving is lacking in quantity of studies. If there are any effects, these can be detected more easily in a big sample. The implications of results, either significant or non-significant, are more informative if the sample size is really big. In turn, a study with lots of participants may spark the interest in this topic, in case an effect is found, or just in general make stronger claims based on the results, than a study with less participants can.
Moreover, in order to actually make inferences as to what causes the potential change in performance a third group may have to be introduced. This third group would not play the game Unblock or another game, but they would simply watch a video of someone playing the game for the same amount of time the other group plays the game. It could be that simply by watching the game as it progresses, people get a good picture of what they need to do and how. However, the interaction with the game might be what actually causes a change in subsequent performance instead of the game’s concept. This third group would have been included in this study, but the researcher chose to leave it out because of concerns over the increased sample size necessary for one more group. The research question this study set out to answer was very broad and general. Future studies may benefit from a more specific goal. Also, the study was focused on the performance on the Tower of Hanoi as an indicator for problem-solving skills, which is quite disconnected from the real life. It may be much more interesting to test whether videogames do have an immediate influence on the human mind in the context of real-life. For example, if a person plays a strategic game with the focus on resource management, this person may transfer the things experienced in the game into a real life situation that is about resource management (i.e. managing some kind of corporation) to a certain extent. This kind of study could shine a better light on the potential applications of videogames in the future.
Future studies should be designed in a way that the limitations of this study are taken into account. For example, the study should take place in an isolated controlled environment as opposed to the relative randomness connected to the fact that the experiment was distributed via the Internet. If this cannot be done, a few questions may be included which could indicate the level of noise the participant is experiencing during the experiment. That variable can be controlled for, then. As mentioned earlier, more efforts could go into making sure that the sample has as many people with all kinds of videogame experience. The sample used in this study was heavily biased in the sense that one third of all participants indicated that they played more than 15 hours per week. Alternatively, people could be pre-selected based on their videogame experiences and be put into two different groups, with one group being made up exclusively with people on the very low end of videogame experience and the second group would include
11 people with lots of videogame experience. This introduces another factor into the research, making it more complex, but also more valid since videogame experience plays a large role in studies about videogames, as this study showed, too.
Another interesting dimension future research could look at is the differences between physical versions of games and their digital counterparts. Does playing one of these games on a screen while playing a physical version of the other game increases or decreases the performance compared to those who played either both games in their digital form or their physical form? Another question is how the performance differs based on the version participants play and what factors may or may not influence whether a person is better with the physical version or the digital version. Using the hands in doing movements in the game may engage the brain to a different extent than simply using a mouse to play the game. The games may be taken more or less seriously depending on the version that is played. Just focusing on moving the mouse may also increase the amount of focus a person experiences while playing the game, compared to someone who plays the physical version.
5. CONCLUSION
This study provided no evidence that there was an immediate influence of playing a puzzle-game on the performance in the
Tower of Hanoi. However, the data suggests that being
experienced with games did have a strong impact on the overall performance during the experiment. It may be that videogame experience played less of a role in the experimental group than in the control group because of the two different conditions. In future research this possible interaction effect should be accounted for already in the conceptualization of a study, so that a possible relationship, if one is indeed to be found, can be subject of more confident discussion than it was the case in this paper. A marginally significant difference was found for the amount of time spent playing the Tower of Hanoi between the experimental group and the control group. This finding might be judged as a sign of fatigue or loss of drive. This paper can guide future researchers, who investigate the benefits of videogames, in their efforts to avoid obstacles and mistakes that weaken the interpretation of their research.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank all participants who took part in the study. Thanks goes out to Bart Hufen for the patience and supervision during the process of this research. Moreover, the author wants to thank Dr. Sebastiaan Dovis and Dr. Wijnand Ijsselstein for their valuable guidance at the very beginning of the process.
7. REFERENCES
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neurology and neuroscience, 26(4, 5), 435-446.
[2]. Adachi, P. J., & Willoughby, T. (2013). More than just fun and games: The longitudinal relationships between strategic video games, self-reported problem solving skills, and academic grades. Journal of youth and
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[3]. Anderson, J. R., & Douglass, S. (2001). Tower of Hanoi: evidence for the cost of goal retrieval. Journal of
experimental psychology: learning, memory, and cognition, 27(6), 1331.
[4]. Boot, W. R., Blakely, D. P., & Simons, D. J. (2011). Do action video games improve perception and
cognition?. Frontiers in psychology, 2, 226.
[5]. Boot, W. R., Kramer, A. F., Simons, D. J., Fabiani, M., & Gratton, G. (2008). The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control. Acta
psychologica, 129(3), 387-398.
[6]. Cattell, R. B. (1943). The measurement of adult intelligence. Psychological Bulletin, 40(3), 153.
[7]. Cattell, R. B. (1963). Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. Journal of educational
psychology, 54(1), 1.
[8]. Colzato, L. S., van den Wildenberg, W. P., Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2013). Action video gaming and cognitive control: playing first person shooter games is associated with improvement in working memory but not action inhibition.Psychological research, 77(2), 234-239.
[9]. Colzato, L. S., Van Leeuwen, P. J., Van Den Wildenberg, W., & Hommel, B. (2010). DOOM'd to switch: superior cognitive flexibility in players of first person shooter games. Frontiers in psychology, 1, 8.
[10]. Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. C. (2014). The benefits of playing video games. American Psychologist, 69(1), 66
[11]. Green, C.S., Bavelier, D. (2006) Effect of action video games on the spatial distribution of visuospatial attention.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.32(6):1465–1478.
[12]. Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2006). The cognitive neuroscience of video games. Digital media:
Transformations in human communication, 211-223.
[13]. Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2006). Enumeration versus multiple object tracking: The case of action video game players. Cognition, 101(1), 217-245.
[14]. Greenfield, P. M. (1984). Mind and media: The effects of television, videogames, and computers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[15]. Kinney, L. B. (1952). Developing problem-solving skills in adolescents. The High School Journal, 35(4), 113-119.
[16]. Orosy-Fildes, C., and R.W. Allan. 1989. Psychology of computer use: XII. Videogame play: Human reaction time to visual stimuli. Perceptual and Motor Skills 69:243-247 [17]. Prensky, M. (2012). From digital natives to digital
wisdom: Hopeful essays for 21st century education. Corwin–A Sage Company.
[18]. Ryan, R. M., Rigby, C. S., & Przybylski, A. (2006). The motivational pull of video games: A self-determination theory approach. Motivation and emotion,30(4), 344-360. [19]. Scott, W. A. (1963). Cognitive complexity and cognitive
balance. Sociometry, 66-74.
[20]. Simon, H. A. (1975). The functional equivalence of problem solving skills.Cognitive Psychology, 7(2), 268-288.
[21]. Subrahmanyam, K., & Greenfield, P. M. (1994). Effect of video game practice on spatial skills in girls and
boys. Journal of applied developmental psychology,15(1), 13-32.
[22]. Wolpe, J. (1973). The practice of behavior therapy.. Pergamon.
[23]. Wu, S., Cheng, C. K., Feng, J., D'Angelo, L., Alain, C., & Spence, I. (2012). Playing a first-person shooter video game induces neuroplastic change. Journal of cognitive
12
8. APPENDIX
8.1 Survey: Control group
Hereby I consent to be a participant in the current research study by André Dirks. I have agreed to take
part in the study entitled "The influence of video games on problem solving skills" and I understand that
my participation is entirely voluntary. I understand that my responses will be kept strictly confidential and
anonymous. I have the option to withdraw from this study at any time, without penalty, and I also have the
right to request that my responses are not being used. The following points have been explained to
me:1. The goal of this study is to advance the scientific knowledge of the benefits of video games.2. I will be
asked to play a game called Tower of Hanoi and will fill out a questionnaire prior to playing that game.3.
The current study will last approximately 20 minutes. At the end of the study, the researcher will provide a
more detailed description concerning what the research was about. 4. My responses will be treated
confidentially and my anonymity will be ensured. Hence, my responses are not identifiable and cannot be
linked back to me as an individual. 5. The researcher will answer any questions I might have regarding this
research, now or later in the course of the study.
Have you ever played the "Tower of Hanoi"?
Yes, I played it a lot. (You will be directed to the end of the survey)
Yes, but I played infrequently.
No
Please read the descriptions of the tasks thoroughly before actually starting to play the game. There are
some important directions, which are fundamental to the research.
Please indicate how you are feeling right now.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Not at all anxious Extremely
anxious
Not at all happy Extremely
happy
Not at all relaxed Extremely
relaxed
Not at all confident Extremely
confident
Not at all sad Extremely
sad
Not at all angry Extremely
13
How old are you?
___________
What is your gender?
Male
Female
What is your nationality?
Dutch
German
Other ____________________
What gaming platform appeals the most to you?
Console
PC
Smartphone
Tablet
None, since I do not/ rarely play games
What type of game appeals the most to you?
Shooters
(Action-) Adventure
Puzzle games
Roleplaying games
Strategy games
Arcade games
Card games
Board games
No preference, since I rarely play games
Other
How many hours per week do you play games (on any platform)?
I do not play games frequently
0 - 2 hours
2 - 4
4 - 6
6 - 8
8 - 10
10 - 12
12 - 15
14
Next you are going to play a browser version of a game called "Tower of Hanoi". It is a tough game. The
rules are explained before the game starts. You will play the game for 15 minutes/ 900 seconds max.
Please, increase the number of rings to nine (9) by pressing the upwards arrow until there are nine
rings. Once the time is over, please fill in how many moves you made (the browser version keeps track of
the moves, as well as the time in seconds). When you are finished playing the game, you can go on with
the survey. http://www.softschools.com/games/logic_games/tower_of_hanoi/ <<<<<<--- Right-Click
and "Open in new tab", so that the survey stays active
Are you finished playing the game "Tower of Hanoi"?
Yes
No
How long did you play the "Tower of Hanoi" (in seconds)?
______ Seconds played
While you played the "Tower of Hanoi", did you ever move the disk labeled with a 3?
Yes
No
While you played the "Tower of Hanoi", did you ever move the disk labeled with a 4?
Yes
No
While you played the "Tower of Hanoi", did you ever move the disk labeled with a 5?
Yes
No
While you played the "Tower of Hanoi", did you ever move the disk labeled with a 6?
Yes
No
While you played the "Tower of Hanoi", did you ever move the disk labeled with a 7?
Yes
No
While you played the "Tower of Hanoi", did you ever move the disk labeled with a 8?
Yes
No
While you played the "Tower of Hanoi", did you ever move the disk labeled with a 9?
Yes
15
How many moves did you use while playing the "Tower of Hanoi"?
___________
Thank you for your participation! The experiment is now over.
8.2 Survey: Experimental group
Hereby I consent to be a participant in the current research study by André Dirks. I have agreed to take
part in the study entitled "The influence of video games on problem solving skills" and I understand that
my participation is entirely voluntary. I understand that my responses will be kept strictly confidential and
anonymous. I have the option to withdraw from this study at any time, without penalty, and I also have the
right to request that my responses are not being used. The following points have been explained to
me:1. The goal of this study is to advance the scientific knowledge of the benefits of video games.2. I will be
asked to play a game called Tower of Hanoi and will fill out a questionnaire prior to playing that game.3.
The current study will last approximately 20 minutes. At the end of the study, the researcher will provide a
more detailed description concerning what the research was about. 4. My responses will be treated
confidentially and my anonymity will be ensured. Hence, my responses are not identifiable and cannot be
linked back to me as an individual. 5. The researcher will answer any questions I might have regarding this
research, now or later in the course of the study.
Have you ever played the "Tower of Hanoi"?
Yes, I played it a lot. (You will be directed to the end of the survey)
Yes, but I played infrequently.
No.
Please read the descriptions of the tasks thoroughly before actually starting to play the game. There are
some important directions, which are fundamental to the research.
Please follow the link you see below, right-click the link and choose "Open in new Tab". This way the survey
stays active. The experiment requires you to play the game "Unblock me" for ten (10) minutes, so please
keep track of the time. After pressing the PLAY button you can read the instructions on the screen. Click
the controller on the bottom to start the game, when you finished reading the instructions, and select level
1. Later, I will ask you for the level you finished on. The number is displayed at the very top. When you are
finished playing the game, you can go on with the survey. http://mikigames.com/unblock-me/
<<<<--- Right<<<<---Click and "Open in new Tab", so that the survey stays active.
Are you finished playing "Unblock me"?
Yes
16 Please indicate how you are feeling right now.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Not at all anxious Extremely
anxious
Not at all happy Extremely
happy
Not at all relaxed Extremely
relaxed
Not at all confident Extremely
confident
Not at all sad Extremely
sad
Not at all angry Extremely
angry
