By Emma Boyle
Anyone who has played Tetris knows that it’s an addictive experience; as basic as its gameplay is, it’s extremely compelling and there’s always a feeling that you can do better next time. It’s this aspect of the game in combination with its highly visual nature that has researchers looking into how it can be used as a treatment tool in therapy.
Professor Emily Holmes, an expert in psychology at the University of Karolinska, told the BBC she has spent years looking into the game’s possible medical applications. What she’s found is that the “absorbing” colors, shapes, and movements of Tetris really tap into visual memory in a way that pub quiz games and counting tasks don’t.
Holmes has just published a study which found that tapping into a patient’s visual memory is a good method of starting to treat the psychological impact of traumatic events and that Tetris is a good way to do this.
Visual memory
Holmes and a team at the University of Oxford gave Tetris to patients who had recently been admitted to hospital ER in a state of shock following road traffic accidents.
The researchers encouraged these patients to visualize the crash they had just experienced and then to …read more
Source:: techradar.com – Gaming
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