Video games: Causality vs correlation

[twmac]

Really liked this article in the Escapist's most recent update:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_153/4960-The-Anatomy-of-Violence

It is an issue that has been done to death in the media but no one seems to have taken it on in this quiet, intellectual manner. I read it, imaginning Noam Chomsky's voice.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Very nice article! Hooray for not being Jack Thompson-esque! It's a little glib, though. For a start it only uses one book as a reference. But still, it's very VERY nice to see something like this talked about in a calm rational manner.

To continue the discussion, I'd just say that it uses the example of the police officer who handed the gun back to the criminal. That's an extremely literal automatically controlled physical response from the "middle brain". The other example used are the soldiers who, in training, were given human like targets to fire their guns at.

In both instances it required very distinct and very physical training. Our muscles and our brains are extremely tied together (as modern day hypnotherapy has taught us - tap your body while you're feeling an emotion, and then tap it again later to feel that same emotion) so really, where's the evidence that our middle brain's won't try and click the left mouse button in times of extreme stress?

There needs to be more of an examination of what exactly the "middle brain" is remembering. Part of the article says it's nothing more than "fight" versus "flight", but the examples given show only physical reactions, not mental ones, and that seems consistent with the understanding that the middle brain doesn't have logical thought behind it.

So to sum up: The article doesn't really provide any evidence that games remove our natural inhibitions against killing, and if anything, supplies evidence to the contrary. I'd love to see this researched a bit more, though.

[Cigol]

It's a great advertisement for the book because much of the supporting theory isn't properly defined. I think we can all agree that this is something worth investigating but I won't be jumping on the bandwagon any time soon - I'm going to wait for some fair and balanced review that actually has some evidence.

This guy was obviously convinced by the book into gurning on the internet, Noam Chomsky would be rolling in his grave if he wasn't still alive and kicking.

[Scrobbs]

It is a very good article - although for me he doesn't touch enough on the restraint or discipline aspect. He says we need to teach ethics - but that is something that personally I see as not many kids growing up have any more.

[Wrestlevania]

While we haven't been conditioned to be murderers, however, the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings prove that some of us are capable of committing heinous acts of violence under ostensibly mundane conditions.

...with the explicit prerequisite being that you're a fucking lunatic. And they've been around just a little bit longer than video games.

In a society where more than 90 percent of the people who play violent video games are capable of using deadly force under life-threatening conditions, there are implications across the board, from law enforcement to education.

Completely unsubstantiated anywhere in the article; it's just seemingly plucked out of thin air plopped in for effect.

Few of us who play violent games will ever kill in our lifetimes; but it's important to know we have that capability, and to teach the appropriate discipline to control it in a crisis. That doesn't mean putting everybody who has ever played a violent game through boot camp; but teaching ethics, and having a penalty in games for killing non-combatants could have a noticeable impact on the outcome of this conditioning.

I'm struggling to recall a modern FPS of note that hasn't disciplined a player for killing non-combatants, if not outright punished them when doing so.

Yes, granted, there are dozens of shitty low-brow shooters out there. But if you're not discerning enough to ignore that shite then you're probably not discerning enough to differentiate right from wrong on a socially responsible level anyway. And video games have nothing to do with that; it's a huge problem on a far more fundamental level than someone idly shooting things on a screen.

[DanJW]

Also, while there is a little bit of similarity between human-looking targets and video games, clicking a mouse is very different to firing a gun. Yes, I've done both; I had rifle training in the army cadets as a teenager. Everything about the experience is missing from the weight, the smell, the feel of the steel. Real shooting is a very visceral experience and no amount of virtual practice will prepare you for it.

While I love FPS games I still retain my rifle discipline that taught me never to point a weapon, even an unloaded one, at a living person. I'd also say civilian shooting clubs are more likely to habitualise the shooting reflex than games are.

Also because of infinite lives, games teach a kamikaze approach. If someone used Video game tactics in a live-fire situation they'd be dead very fast indeed.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Completely unsubstantiated anywhere in the article; it's just seemingly plucked out of thin air plopped in for effect.

That sentence is pretty much the point of the whole article, but as you've pointed out, there's not a reason given for seeing a connection. Sure, like those in Vietnam, who practised with life-like targets, they retrained their "middle brains" to fight instead of flight, and it was 90% effective... But! There's zero evidence that the muscle memory of gun practice and mouse clicking could swap over. Nor any supplied evidence that shooting people in a game re-trains your middle brain in any way, either.

It's a load of crap, really, now that you mention it. Even if it is worth noting as an honorable attempt at writing something level-headed on the subject.

I'm struggling to recall a modern FPS of note that hasn't disciplined a player for killing non-combatants, if not outright punished them when doing so.

It's not about "goodie" or "baddie", nor about pre-meditated ideas of right or wrong, it's about our middle brain (out of the so-called three we have) deciding to fight instead of flight. There is no logic in such situations (like in the given example of the police officer who handed the gun back to the criminal).

[ThunderPeel2001]

Also, while there is a little bit of similarity between human-looking targets and video games, clicking a mouse is very different to firing a gun. Yes, I've done both; I had rifle training in the army cadets as a teenager. Everything about the experience is missing from the weight, the smell, the feel of the steel. Real shooting is a very visceral experience and no amount of virtual practice will prepare you for it.

Yep, although I've never fired a real gun, I find it very hard to believe that my brain could get confused between sitting in my bedroom moving a small plastic mouse around and running about with a heavy steel killing device in my hands.

That's like confusing Daily Thompson's Decathalon with going to he gym.

"Nnnng! My muscles are straining!"

[twmac]

Wrestle - Earth Defense Force doesn't punish you for shooting your team mates.

Clearly this is one of those reports that is mired by Non disclosure agreements. The army is already using games that are not released to the general public as a way of training for exercises. Talked to an ex-army guy who told me of a soldier in his platon who released some footage of it on youtube and got court martialled. The article was written by a guy who works in the military and there is probably more evidence and data that he cannot even begin to quote with getting himself in trouble.

I think the article is agreeing very much with what you guys are saying. He is saying that there is a correlation between playing a game and being able to train the mind to switch to a 'killer instinct' but that it is causality that dictates how we use that.

The example of the cop disarming the robber and then handing the gun back correlates directly to him training his brain to do that. The reason that situation occurred was because he chose to become a cop.

It might be possible for me to disassociate myself from finding meaning in human life but that it would take more than computer games to encourage me to do that. That I would have to chose to tap whatever it is that helps me to derive pleasure from killing virtual enemies to applying that to real life.

[Wrestlevania]

Earth Defense Force doesn't punish you for shooting your team mates.

Fair enough. But it doesn't have the market penetration or mind share of brands like Gears of War or Ghost Recon. Both of those franchises punish you for hurting/killing team mates.

(But I really don't want to get stuck on naming every single FPS that does or doesn't.)

The example of the cop disarming the robber and then handing the gun back correlates directly to him training his brain to do that. The reason that situation occurred was because he chose to become a cop.

I can hear Nintendo's marketing department stirring...

[ThunderPeel2001]

Clearly this is one of those reports that is mired by Non disclosure agreements. The army is already using games that are not released to the general public as a way of training for exercises. Talked to an ex-army guy who told me of a soldier in his platon who released some footage of it on youtube and got court martialled. The article was written by a guy who works in the military and there is probably more evidence and data that he cannot even begin to quote with getting himself in trouble.

Interesting POV and scary if you're right.

[DanJW]

The military use games to train in group tactics and coordination. They don't help with the actual shooting part.

[twmac]

You're right.

The point I was getting at is that games are used as training, as a form of association. When dropped into situations where they are required to do these things they will remember the 'games' they played in training and recreate them.

The reason I brought up the court martial issue is that the military don't like people talking about what reasearch they are doing into this stuff, so unfortuantely the guy who wrote the article is required to be vague about his references.

I'm a bit surprised by the angry reaction to this article on this forum as he is simply arguing that, in the same way that playing puzzle games encourages our brain to solve problems that, under the right supervision, games can help trigger reflexes and, well, shooting people without thinking.

He never tries to say that games make us raving psycopaths but that games can be used to 'help' us, if we choose to do so, fight rather run away.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think the problem with the article, and I don't think it's necessarily an angry reaction, is that the middle brain (according to the article) is incredibly simplistic and there's an important piece of evidence that's missing: That the middle brain can make the leap from holding a mouse to holding a gun - and still think it's in the same situation.

[DanJW]

Yeah I'm not angry at it at all, I think it's a good article. But it doesn't have The Magical Answer.