I was a very bizarre child up to age 10 or so. Wouldn’t look people in the eye, walked into walls, talked to myself, didn’t make friends, etc. Now essentially none of that shows. I may have “had something” but it’s moot at this point.
The only bizarre thing that remains is my near-pathological lack of spatial skills. I can’t aim, throw, dance, or drive with anywhere near the ease of a normal person. (I wonder if it’s improvable at all?)
The only bizarre thing that remains is my near-pathological lack of spatial skills. I can’t aim, throw, dance, or drive with anywhere near the ease of a normal person. (I wonder if it’s improvable at all?)
I taught myself to juggle at around 14 or 15 and felt it improved my coordination in rugby and basketball which I played at the time. I attribute some improvement in my reaction times and spatial awareness to extensive Quake deathmatch sessions as well. It’s hard to say whether those effects were genuine however since I had no real way of performing a controlled study. There may be a cutoff age at which significant improvement is possible (as appears to be the case with language acquisition) but this study found that surgeons who played video games improved their hand eye coordination for laparoscopic surgery which suggests video games may be useful for adults.
So-called ‘twitch’ video games are best for improving hand eye co-ordination. First person shooters are probably best for improving spatial awareness and also generally focus on twitch gameplay. A realistic driving game may help improve driving skills specifically. There are a number of attempts to use driving simulators to improve awareness in new drivers but I’m not sure what research exists to support their effectiveness.
For a different perspective, Psychonauts, Cave Story, and Portal are all absolutely charming twitchy games I’d recommend to anyone. Portal in particular will improve spatial awareness even in ways that aren’t actually useful.
Portal is indeed a great game and since it features a rather unfriendly (or at least homicidally eccentric) AI is quite appropriate for Less Wrong readers. It’s probably a little less stressful for a novice FPS player than your typical modern FPS as well while still being a spatial and coordination challenge.
Portal is indeed a great game and since it features a rather unfriendly (or at least homicidally eccentric) AI
Apart from the unrealistic passive-aggressive personality, GlaDOS seems like sort of a reasonable example of the problem of giving an AI overly-narrow goals like “conduct research”. ;-)
I don’t know about unrealistic but I found GLaDOS a bizarrely sympathetic character considering she has no qualms about killing you. And she does offer cake.
Wolpaw further describes the idea of using cake as the reward came about as “at the beginning of the Portal development process, we sat down as a group to decide what philosopher or school of philosophy our game would be based on. That was followed by about 15 minutes of silence and then someone mentioned that a lot of people like cake.”
ETA: For the non spoiler-averse the song from the end credits of Portal gives a pretty good insight into GLaDOS’ personality.
The only bizarre thing that remains is my near-pathological lack of spatial skills. I can’t aim, throw, dance, or drive with anywhere near the ease of a normal person. (I wonder if it’s improvable at all?)
How do you feel about your “spatial reasoning” abilities? I’m curious, since I know you work in mathematics, a field in which high aptitude in this domain is apparently common.
I was a very bizarre child up to age 10 or so. Wouldn’t look people in the eye, walked into walls, talked to myself, didn’t make friends, etc. Now essentially none of that shows. I may have “had something” but it’s moot at this point.
The only bizarre thing that remains is my near-pathological lack of spatial skills. I can’t aim, throw, dance, or drive with anywhere near the ease of a normal person. (I wonder if it’s improvable at all?)
I taught myself to juggle at around 14 or 15 and felt it improved my coordination in rugby and basketball which I played at the time. I attribute some improvement in my reaction times and spatial awareness to extensive Quake deathmatch sessions as well. It’s hard to say whether those effects were genuine however since I had no real way of performing a controlled study. There may be a cutoff age at which significant improvement is possible (as appears to be the case with language acquisition) but this study found that surgeons who played video games improved their hand eye coordination for laparoscopic surgery which suggests video games may be useful for adults.
I’ve heard this about video games. (I never played any, myself.) Now I really want to try and see.
So-called ‘twitch’ video games are best for improving hand eye co-ordination. First person shooters are probably best for improving spatial awareness and also generally focus on twitch gameplay. A realistic driving game may help improve driving skills specifically. There are a number of attempts to use driving simulators to improve awareness in new drivers but I’m not sure what research exists to support their effectiveness.
For a different perspective, Psychonauts, Cave Story, and Portal are all absolutely charming twitchy games I’d recommend to anyone. Portal in particular will improve spatial awareness even in ways that aren’t actually useful.
Portal is indeed a great game and since it features a rather unfriendly (or at least homicidally eccentric) AI is quite appropriate for Less Wrong readers. It’s probably a little less stressful for a novice FPS player than your typical modern FPS as well while still being a spatial and coordination challenge.
Apart from the unrealistic passive-aggressive personality, GlaDOS seems like sort of a reasonable example of the problem of giving an AI overly-narrow goals like “conduct research”. ;-)
I don’t know about unrealistic but I found GLaDOS a bizarrely sympathetic character considering she has no qualms about killing you. And she does offer cake.
ETA: For the non spoiler-averse the song from the end credits of Portal gives a pretty good insight into GLaDOS’ personality.
How do you feel about your “spatial reasoning” abilities? I’m curious, since I know you work in mathematics, a field in which high aptitude in this domain is apparently common.
Used to be bad, improved with practice. Oddly enough, the year I learned topology I became much better at driving and also at geometrical puzzles.
Mathematicians are known for being skilled athletes and talented dancers?