Talk:Tetris effect

In October 2007, this article survived an AFD:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tetris effect There have been reports of this effect occuring with the game Meteos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.135.123.8 (talk • contribs)

Remember Sammy Jankis?

Could the Tetris effect be related to the ability of anterograde amnesiacs to learn skills, as explained in the movie Memento? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 06:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Guitar Hero

does guitar hero really apply?

--Danlock2 14:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure it does apply. However, in my opinion, Guitar Hero doesn't have nearly the same popularity as Dance Dance Revolution or Tetris for that matter Tetris. It isn't our job to list every game where the tetris effect can be seen. I'm going to remove it, if you disagree, feel free to add it back in. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 14:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I think most games can be applied to this situation. I mean, Christ, I once went through a phase with Guild Wars where I was playing it so often I was dreaming of it. In fact, when walking down the road with my friend Tom, I tried to "draw on my map" to show him that I wanted to go down a sideroad. It's very odd. Also harkens back to the day of Pokemon where the sounds of the gameboy would repeat themselves endlessly in my head, though that's more of an earworm. As for Guitar Hero itself, I have left a GH party and "played" songs on the radio in the car in my head, imagining what it would look like. Scary stuff. GreaterSteven 17:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I think guitar hero (and DDR just because it's more or less the same) has the most prominant effect of any game. After two songs things that you stare at begin to slide just like the board does. Even longer and I start to feel like I'm going crazy.

I don't think that having dreams of something just because you play should be characterisitics of this syndrome. We dream about things that happen to use all the time, someone may dream of guild wars, or anything else after only one time of playing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.159.249 (talk • contribs)

Violence in Video Games

I wonder aloud, (at least digitally,) whether this phenomenon could be used to bolster the arguement that overly violent video games are damaging. I have heard anecdotal reports of players of Grand Theft Auto who briefly entertain the possibility of carjacking. Of course this may perhaps be a commentary on the people I hang out with more than the phenomenon --Roninbk 09:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep. I have considered carjacking after playing too much GTA. However, the important thing is that I never stole any cars and entertaining the possibility of breaking the law isn't illegal or violent. Plus, like you said: anecdotal. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 12:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

After playing Team Fortress Classic in high school, I started seeing "red dots" (the laser mark of a sniper rifle, as depicted in the game). I've also suffered from the Tetris effect after DDR.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.212.30.130 (talk • contribs)

When I first started playing Star Craft online,I played it so much that I would hear the sound of dieing zerglings when I tried to sleep.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.85.235.233 (talk • contribs)

I had the same thing with Starcraft too. I would dream about missile turrets spinning around, over and over.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.120.144 (talk • contribs)

That happend with me with Halo 2, I played it so much I kept hearing the sound when your shield gets depleted, this was also followed by me thinking "Oh crap!" and than realising it wasn't happening. Simular things has happend to me with games like Puyo Puyo, WoW and Instant Messaging programs.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.237.112 (talk • contribs)

I have to disagree on that point. Tetris is such a simple game that your brain constructs a virtual game inside and does all the processing there, asking the eyes only for what the newest pieces are and telling the fingers where to send it. After a point you stop checking to see if the piece is going where it is supposed to. Tetris becomes so ingrained in your brain that you think, see, and feel it. This can't happen with a more complex shooter or adventure game because you have to rely so much more on your senses to gather the necessary information. It is quite a different experience. I've played tetris for no more than 2 hours continuously, and no more than ~5 hours in a day, while I've played shooter games for 3-4 hours on end and 7 hours in a day. I've most certainly experienced the tetris effect, whereas I've never felt like I was playing a shooter when I wasn't, nor had any other urge to kill somebody (without extreme provocation, of course). Don't worry, I only play that much occasionally, once every few months. 68.228.75.6 06:16, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting. I don't have time to play games so much anymore, but many years ago when I played Doom (it may have been Doom 2) and I had a very vivid dream where I was in the Doom world and it looked like the graphics on the screen.

Another interesting effect I had (I don't know if I can describe it right), when I played a lot of Jedi Knight II and you have "force powers" (such as grabbing a weapon out of an opponents hands) and I felt like if I wanted something from across the room I should be able to "will" it to me. I mean the force was real in the virtual world and I had this sensation that it should work in the real world. Similarly when I played a lot of Matrix Online you have this hyper jump ability and at the time I went to a downtown area and felt as if I should be able to jump ontop of the highrise buildings. LOL - AbstractClass 18:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Splinter Cell made me constantly have parkour on the brain.70.231.230.33 10:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Although I don't usually endorse discussing something not directly related to the improvement of an article on talk pages (as it's not at all what they're for), I'm going to comment here. I too have experienced the so called "tetris effect", leading to attempts by myself to navigate through video game maps that didn't exist, and planning several moves ahead in card games that I wasn't playing. I doubt that the tetris effect coul lead to violent behavior, even from violent video games, because it seems to be most rooted in patterns and repetition. Videogames rely heavily on hand-eye coordination. The part that becomes lodged in one's head is the actual repetitive strategic function, not the physical action, which usually consists of nothing more than pressing buttons. Therefore, if one were to experience this "tetris effect" with regards to violent video games, the actions that their mind remembers and strategize may be very violent, but there is no reason they should act out on it, as the physical action that the mind connects it to is nothing more than button-pressing.

Calgary 02:03, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

To the two already very good responses defending video games, I'd like to add what I've always thought was the basic argument against "video games cause violence." No amount of seeing, playing, or thinking about violence changes whether or not you can tell that fiction from reality. The inability to tell the two apart is a separate problem which you have or don't have regardless of how much violent content you accept in your entertainment. So even if spending hours on shooters made you start seeing the real world that way, unless there was something already very wrong with you, it wouldn't matter. People who can't tell reality and fiction apart have that problem before they ever buy a PC, and quitting video games won't make it go away. (And to add to the anecdotal pseudo-evidence on this page, I have suffered the Tetris effect from Tetris and one very unrealistic DOS shooter. I've never had it from more realistic/complex/violent games like Unreal Tournament, Halo, or Oblivion, despite playing them far more often and for longer periods of time.) --67.110.213.253 05:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

IMO i believe guitar hero is another strong example of the tetris effect, it is the only other game i played were after playing i kept applying it to real life (tetris - random objects fitting together, GH - thinking of songs in patterns of guitar hero). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.67.90.147 (talk) 01:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I have several times related things in real life to keys while playing a game. While lost in the country one day, I mentally motioned to press 'M' on my keyboard for a map. I once saw a man who looked vaguely like a character in Gears of War and went to press the 'B' for my melee attack. I would explain this as the Tetris effect. It didn't, however, have any influence over my personal sense of judgment or morality. I have also gotten the Tetris effect with Grand Theft Auto (driving around Liberty City in my mind), Warcraft III (mentally imaging battles), and World of Warcraft. Of course, I've also had these effects from doing household chores that take some amount of time. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 09:44, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

"Tetris Attack" is the most efficient video game ever for bringing on the Tetris effect!! --1sneakers6 (talk) 09:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Trozei effect .

I had a similar tetris effect playing Pokémon trozei where i imagined inanimet objects sliding and scrolling the same way as in the game .

Richardson j 23:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

The Cure

I've been playing Tetris for at least one hlf hour a day for the last four months and this (the tetris effect) gets so annoying that when I try to sleep I lay in bed thinking about tetris so I stay up an extra couple minuets and play. Tetris really helps me out in school to with my grades but some people think I'm weird for playing Tetris that much. Playing tetris when I get these "visions" helps them go away, Tetris is like a drug for your mind, once you start you don't want to stop but you just keep doing it. So I guess easing off on the amount you play of Tetris can really help those "visions" go away. R d the savior 03:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Duration

In my experience, it's a pretty short-lived effect (a day or two if you stop playing so much). Is there any real research that agrees/disagrees with that? I don't see it mentioned in the article anywhere yet, nor did I spot it skimming through the two external links. Considering that there's a discussion about how this applies to claims of game-induced violence, I think it could be important to say how quickly it wears off. --67.110.213.253 05:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Simpsons reference?

Are you sure a Simpsons episode is valid for demonstrating the existance of this effect?

—Nethac DIU, would never stop to talk here—
22:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope. But the paper seems valid, right? ~a (user • talk • contribs) 04:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if the Simpsons affirms the existence of something, then it is inherently notable and exists (as a reported phenomenon) that Wikipedia must cover.

In fact, Simpsons coverage should be the definition of notability in the field of psychological effects applying to the media-saturated.

--Wragge 17:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

PS: The only real question is over the name of the article, not the need for one.

Is this 'real'?

This article doesn't make clear if the "Tetris effect" is recognised as a psychological condition/disorder by professionals, or if it is just a colloquial term for some other condition, or if it's just a bit of a joke in the games/tech community. Even if there is any credible psychological work that cites the "Tetris effect", I suspect this would be debated by many in the field, in which case this should be made clear in the article.

This is a really, really bad example of Wikipedia — it just looks silly and not very authoritative. If the "Tetris effect" is just a techy joke and not taken seriously by psychologists, then it's still fine to have a Wikipedia article on the 'phenomenon', but the fact that it's not a professionally recognised condition should be made clear in the opening paragraph. 89.241.239.221 17:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The only source that is cited is this one (only the abstract is free to read). Anything that you don't see in that paper, is (in my opinion) probably original research. As far as that paper is concerned, the concept is real. You're more than welcome, even encouraged, to introduce new reliable sources that paint a different view. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 04:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This sort of discussion culminated in a proposal to delete the article (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tetris effect). Because I introduced this article, I thought I should respond with my thoughts: First, although I have the utmost respect for, and share the concerns with, the editors who opted to delete, I'm happy the decison was to keep the article. I've improved the citations. Second, the time between the proposal and the decision to keep the article was very brief (five days), far too brief for this busy, professional, Psychology academic even to be aware of it. Third, the requirement that Wikipedia articles cite authoritative sources, although well-meant and in some ways essential, seems designed to thwart one of its major strengths over conventional encyclopedias, its timeliness. Fourth, the prohibition on original research opposes the requirement to cite authoritative sources. In this case, some editors opting to delete the article seemed to be claiming that I invented the term. This claim can be falsified if there is any reference to it by someone other than me prior to my writing the article, and there is (e.g., it is mentioned in 2004 in http://www.atmasphere.net/wp/archives/2004/12/08/bejeweled-20). But those same editors could then say my finding this reference is original research and ignore it! A more difficult objection to dispose of is that the term existed only in too few people to justify the article. That would require more original research, along with some specification of how many, and what sort of, people do justify an article about a term they are using. I can say here (I'm assuming the prohibition on original research does not extend to talk pages!) that the term was current among researchers in visual perception when I wrote the article. My role was of scribe rather than prophet. Fifth, writers of articles in conventional encyclopedias and in peer-reviewed journal articles do use their expertise and knowledge of their fields to organize and to name phenomena, and they don't always cite their sources. I know this because I have written both sorts of articles. Sometimes giving a phenomenon a name is just what is required for people to recognize it. Sadly, I cannot take credit for coining the term "Tetris effect", but if the Wikipedia article’s enthusiastic reception is anything to go by, it filled a need. Robert P. O'Shea 03:54, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Hallucination?

I'm not sure if the claim 'the Tetris effect is a form of hallucination' is entirely correct. I would have thought that the reason the Tetris shapes remain seen after you close your eyes is because the images are still imprinted on the retina after prolonged exposure. You'll find that this can happen with mostly anything you focus on for some time, some visual tricks even depend on this trick of the eyes. How quickly the image fades I suppose would depend either upon how long you've been playing, the concentration of narcotics in your system, or whether you've formed a mental illness including delusions where your fixation happens to be falling Tetris blocks and this, well, seems unlikely somehow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Go rators (talk • contribs) 21:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

If you check the definition of hallucination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination) you'll find Tetris imagery meets the criteria (strictly it meets the criteria for a pseudohallucination, but this term is not in wide currency). The only way I know of that "images [can be] ... imprinted on the retina after prolonged exposure" is via afterimages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterimage). Afterimages are static, yet Tetris images move; there are no mechanisms in the human retina for encoding motion via neural adaptation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_adaptation). Moreover, afterimages are usually of the complementary colour to the real images; Tetris images have their correct colours.Robert P. O'Shea 08:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

"I would have thought that the reason the Tetris shapes remain seen after you close your eyes is because the images are still imprinted on the retina" I agree with Robert. That is not what the Tetris Effect is about. As far as I know, the Tetris Effect has nothing to do with your retina directly. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 19:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Lemmings (video game)

I've experienced this effect myself with the game Lemmings from playing it excessively at a young age, and I believe it has had a permanent psychological effect on my mind that will be with me my whole life - the building of bridges, cutting through walls is something I imagine subconsciously all the time. I'd assume this could be construed as being an example of the Tetris effect. However, I doubt that any reliable source has documented this phenomenon, unless anyone knows any better as I'd imagine that Lemmings would be the sort of game which could induce this - I'm not an expert on video game culture, although I do know a fair bit about it.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 01:08, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

You're exactly right. As you say, there are no reliable sources that document this phenomenon so it's undoubtedly original research. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 19:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Advance Wars

When I play long sessions of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, I get this same effect, especially if I play within an hour before going to sleep. When I lay down and try to fall asleep, I will begin to "play" a match in my head, completely made up, against an "opponent". It sounds ridiculous, but it is a real problem and it interferes with my sleep. Does anyone else get this with other strategy/puzzle games?