The activities we do on a daily basis have the power to change the way we think, the more time we spend on something, the more it influences the way we see the world, so in some situations this influence can become very important. This is the case with the so-called Tetris effect.
The Tetris effect takes its name from the well-known video game. In it, people have to adapt different formations composed of cubes so that there is no space between them. It is one of the most addictive video games of all time; people of all ages have dedicated hundreds of hours to it. According to some studies, this may even have changed my mind.
- In this article you will learn exactly what the Tetris effect is and in what situations it can happen.
- Although it is not dangerous.
- It can tell us a lot about how the mind works.
- So knowing more about this mental phenomenon will help you better understand its influence.
Tetris is one of the most sought-after video games in history, the way it is designed has allowed us to know more about certain types of memory, about the attention and processing of information, without a doubt one of its most interesting effects is what it has on how we perceive the world.
Several studies have shown that playing Tetris for a long time can change our thoughts, mental images and dreams, people who have spent a lot of time on this activity have been at the center of their influence, so many ended up perceiving the world. in the same way as video games.
Frequent Tetris players have been amazed to imagine how to integrate different objects into the real world; for example, they looked for ways to better organize supermarket shelves or tried to visualize how different buildings would fit if they could be placed together. it’s not enough, sometimes they had hallucinations where they saw imaginary shapes fall from the sky.
For others, the Tetris effect made them see these pieces in dreams or, even closing their eyes, in the form of hypnagic images, none of these symptoms caused problems for those affected, however, researchers were interested in how a simple game works. can change our perception.
For some psychologists, the Tetris effect is just a matter of habit. Some players might spend many hours on this bar, so your mind would have gotten used to seeing the world in the form of adjustable numbers, in that sense it would be nothing more than a special kind of procedural memory.
On the other hand, several studies that use MRIs to examine the brain have revealed that Tetris has a direct effect on the configuration of this organ. For example, an experiment conducted in 1994 by Okagaki and Frensch showed that playing 12 30-minute sessions each could make gray matter in the brain denser.
This component of the brain is directly related to intelligence, cognitive flexibility and other abilities, so it was concluded that playing Tetris could help improve our mental abilities, in this sense the Tetris effect would be a very positive thing for people under his influence.
Changing the way we think and perceive the world doesn’t happen simply by playing this video game, on the contrary, many activities can change the way we process information.
For example, certain activities such as mounting a Rubik’s cube at full speed (so-called speedcubing) or using programming languages can change our visual perception or the way we use logic, respectively. The same goes for mathematics: on an advanced level, they can change the way they understand the reality of those who study them.
This effect can affect even other senses. Then, the phenomenon known as “sea legs” (the feeling of getting ashore after a boat ride where everything changes) would also be a kind of Tetris effect. The truth is that research on this subject is only just beginning. The discovery of this effect gives us an idea of the true potential of our brain.