Human Brain Adopts Internet as Memory Substitute

By Mary Staub, InnovationNewsDaily Contributor

15 July 2011 11:11 AM ET
(originally published at www.technewsdaily.com)

Throughout history, curmudgeonly scholars have argued that information technology makes people more stupid. Socrates complained that the written word would lead to forgetfulness, and bookmakers of the Renaissance feared the printing press would lead to a loss of studiousness as cheap books fell into the hands of the unworthy. Recently, journalists and scientists have made similar claims about the Internet in general and search engines in particular. After all, why learn something when you can just look it up?

Now researchers have tested this notion through a number of experiments that probe the relationship between memory and the Internet. The results imply that people have shifted from remembering specific facts to remembering where on the Internet they can go to find those facts.

Although this memory-formation phenomenon applies to all information sources, from the written word to knowledgeable friends, the sheer scale of information available on the Internet makes it a mental crutch of unique scale.

"We found that if people have a lot of questions they can't answer, the automatic thing that comes to mind is the Internet or computers," said Betsy Sparrow, a professor of psychology at Columbia University who was the main author of the study.

According to a paper published online in Science Express, the researchers presented their subjects, a group of college students, with a number of trivia questions and with maps of computer folders where the answers to those questions reside. More students were able to remember where the information had been saved than remember the details of the information.

Most people have experienced this firsthand. For example, when you can’t remember the name of the lead actress in "Titanic" or the year "Gone with the Wind" was made, you know IMDB.com will have the answer.

It was a similar experience that led Sparrow to delve into this realm of research to begin with.

"I was watching 'Gaslight' and knew I’d seen one of the actresses before, but couldn’t remember her name," said Sparrow, referring to Angela Lansbury, then in her late teens. "I immediately turned to IMDB ― and then began to wonder what people used to do before the Internet when they didn’t know the answers to questions."

The study implies that if we think we’ll be able to look something up again in the future, we won’t bother to remember it when we first look it up. However, if we believe that the information storage is unreliable, such as a Web page that might get taken down or a file that might get deleted, then our brains automatically commit to remembering the actual facts in addition to the location.

"Participants were given trivia statements like, 'An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain,' and asked to type them into a computer," said Sparrow. "After each statement, they pressed 'enter' and were either told the statement had been saved or erased. They later better remembered the statements they thought had been erased."

Sparrow believes such experiences train the brain to turn other people, the Internet and reference books into external memory sources. But unlike Socrates in railing against the invention of writing, the researchers argue that relying on external memory sources (whether in the form of the written word or the Internet) is not necessarily detrimental.

"We've always used other people as transactive (i.e., external) memory," said Sparrow. "Let's say you work in a business where someone knows how to do a purchase order. You'll always go to that person and not learn it yourself. In some sense the Internet is more reliable and also more democratic because everyone has access to the same resources."

Relaxing Video Games May Calm Players in Real Life

By Mary Staub, TechNewsDaily Contributor

13 June 2011 10:55 AM ET
(originally published at www.technewsdaily.com)

Video games may soon join the ranks of yoga and meditation as sources of calm and compassion, according to a new study that finds video games can have many psychological benefits.

“Our research shows that playing relaxing video games puts people in a better mood,” said Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University and co-author of the study.

“These games don’t only have a positive effect on the person who plays them — the effect reaches other people too because people who are in a good mood state are more willing to help others.”

Although Bushman has long studied the link between violent games and aggressive behaviors, this is his first foray into the effects of relaxing video games because, he said, this type of game simply didn’t exist before.

“Only recently have games focused on calming people down,” Bushman said. “There’s a new market for this which you see across the board. For example, for years we’ve had plenty of energy drinks to energize, but now we also have drinks to calm you down.”

One game that caters to this market of calm is “Endless Oceans” for the Nintendo Wii, in which players explore a non-threatening ocean environment of exotic marine animals and deep-sea treasures. The Ohio researchers found that players of this type of game became more calm and considerate during the game.

For two experiments more than 100 college students were randomly assigned to play a video game that was either relaxing (such as “Endless Oceans”), neutral (such as “Wii Sports Resort”) or violent (such as “Resident Evil”). Students had previously rated all these games as being equally enjoyable and exciting to play.

During the first experiment, participants were asked to compete against another player — who did not actually exist — in pushing a button as quickly as possible. The winner would be awarded a small financial sum; the loser would be punished with a brief noise blast. Before each trial, participants could determine how much their competitors would receive if they won, and how strong a noise blast they would receive if they lost.

“Those people who had played violent games punished their partners the most and rewarded them the least,” Bushman said. “Those who had played relaxing games gave the lowest levels of noise and most amount of money.”

For a second experiment, participants rated how strongly they felt various emotional states (such as pride, love, happiness, anger) after they had played their respective video games (relaxing, neutral or violent). Then, their experimenter told them their study was over, but that he would welcome their help sharpening pencils.

“Sharpening pencils is a pretty boring task, but people who did relaxing games were willing to help in their free time,” Bushman said. Playing relaxing games both increased players’ positive mood states and their willingness to help others.

“These results are very encouraging,” Bushman said. “For example, as a parent, if you want children to relax and be more cooperative with siblings and more helpful, it’s much more useful to have them play relaxing games than violent ones. Maybe even they’ll sleep better at night.”

The research will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.