Cognitive motor performance in Starcraft 2 begins declining at age 24
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
That's a fairly strange way to define "physical demands." It's kind of like saying "for playing guitar, the physical demands are minimal, as it's played with your fingers and perhaps a small pick." Both activities are not just about reflexes and "strategy," because finger strength and muscle memory play a big role in both. Of course, muscle memory occurs (as far as I know) mostly in the brain, but I would still consider that a physical demand distinct from reflexes and strategy.
You can reach the top quartile of Starcraft 2 players through practice, overall strategy, and learning the current meta-game and tactics. Your twitch muscles only become differentiators at a much higher level than 99% of people will achieve.
Edit: above comment based on OP's original headline
Exactly why is that something to be proud of?
Obviously, with no absolutes, the definition of 'more profitable' is entirely subjective - but there is a general threshold in Western society that you could use to discern the popular definition of 'more profitable'.
No they are not, there are people that lack self control. If you have to eliminate an activity to not have it dominate you, you haven't controlled it, it controls you.
Even if that isn't true, why say you are proud to not play games. Are you proud you ordered that meal over some other one last night? Are you proud you chose to make this post two hours ago?
> If you have to eliminate an activity to not have it dominate you, you haven't controlled it, it controls you.
I strongly disagree. I don't want to play games, but feel a compulsion to. Not playing them, I control the situation.
I am proud to not play games for the following reason. Gaming is compulsive while I'm doing it, but afterwards I regret it because I think it's a waste of my time. I could be spending my time helping people. So I take control of that situation by stopping playing the games. And I'm proud that, despite the compulsion to play and the games being designed to stoke that compulsion, I have still managed to not play them.
note: I don't think you playing games is a waste of your time - you may do whatever you please. I'm not casting judgement on anyone but myself. And I don't think games are inherently bad - they are impressive in all sorts of ways. I just don't want to play them.
> That critical parts of the brain involved in decision-making are not fully developed until years later at age 25 or so. [1]
[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1411647...
I mean, what ground-breaking stuff did you learn since? I would really like to read some anecdotes.
In my own experience it's in the category of "You don't know what you don't know". If you are highly focussed on a narrow field of study or experience, yes, you definitely feel like you have "peaked" with respect to mastery. However, once you get exposed to "You now know what you don't know", a lot of things suddenly change.
"The study analyzed the way 3,305 people, aged 16 to 44, played the game against a single random opponent of similar skill, in order to measure the gamers' cognitive motor performance."
The "similar skill" is an incredibly subjective measure. Especially if they relied on the user's scores recorded on battle.net. As someone else noted, they really need to control for the fact that younger people have a lot more free time to play and practice.
A good follow-up study would be to follow a set of gamers for a couple of years as they cross this hypothetical threshold to see if the results still persist and the overall performance decreases.
Of course, they'd need to control for a number of environmental factors and hardware differences, as gaming rigs change quite quickly.
The article describes it as: "Cognitive motor performance is how quickly your brain reacts to things happening around you"
Meaning it is measuring your reaction time, you already know what to do in the situation, you don't have to think about it, you react.
Which is why they elderly are so dangerous behind the wheel, they didn't forget how to drive, they know that they can't run the red light, but the amount of time it takes to process that the red light is there and then to press on the break increases.
I find it fascinating that that this decline starts to show so early.
I can easily imagine this effect being due to people having less time to practice, and due to less time spent practicing, and playing more casually due to 8 hours every day spent working.
"It appeared the older players compensated for their slower speed by making better use of features such as shortcuts and by using simpler strategies."
"I think we're adapting without knowing it," he added. "A lot of us are still able to maintain our skills."
In fact, that held true for older Starcraft players also, when only their score was taken into account.
"We had a lot of people performing at a level higher than their speed would otherwise suggest."
I'm reminded of the cliché of the 17-year old guitar player who equates high tempo with good music. A similar study could reach the exact same conclusion in this ield.
Ok, but what's really like high-speed chess is... speed chess, played with a chess clock. Five minute chess, three minute chess and even one minute chess, those are all like high-speed chess.
In an average game,the first 5 minutes has already decided the match.
this is because you need to be at several locations at once
"Starcraft 2 is a popular strategy game, similar in concept to Risk, where players compete to build armies and conquer a science fictional world."
It's tough to imagine two games more dissimilar in gameplay than Starcraft II and Risk. Also I'm pretty sure Risk isn't played in a "science fictional world"...
Perhaps it takes a slow mind for man to think more deeply about problems, in order to arrive at an elegant solution.
Hopefuly a few decades after retiring from professional gaming, these Starcraft 2 players will produce magnum opera of their own.
Plus, countless other studies have shown that our "soft skills" (crystallized intelligence) like communication, general knowledge, vocabulary, leadership, inter-personal relations, etc. improve BEGINNING at age 25 and continues growing well into our 60's. I have found this particular intelligence to be of far more value in business than the "speed" of my youth ever was.
The HN guidelines call for changing a title when it's misleading or linkbait. I rewrote this one accordingly. Suggestions for further improvement are welcome.
User comments that suggest more accurate, less baity titles are often helpful in cases like this. We're working on a bit of software to make it easier for people to suggest title (and url) changes. It should be ready soon and we'll do a Tell HN post about it.
this is actually very demanding on brain functions. i find the "high speed chess" description not too far from the truth. it's not because it's a "game" that it's simple, easy, or "just require no-life practicing".
Don't make that mistake.
Top players are actually geniuses at making the best choice the fastest and tracking multiple tasks at the same time. All this happens in milliseconds, constantly, there is no break until the game is over.
I believe that the basic brain function is actually choice-making, which makes.. this benchmark pretty accurate. Wisdom, etc.. all this comes with experience and isn't related to the brain's ability to function at it's peak level.
Right when wisdom and perspective start emerging...