New Research Shows Gamers’ Brains “Become One” When Playing Together
Do you ever feel that sometimes you and your ka-duo just work perfectly together even without really talking? As if there’s a sixth-sense guiding you both just like a twin’s connection. Turns out, new research shows that a gamer’s brain becomes “one” with their partners whenever they play games.
Published in Neuropsychologia, a group of cognitive researchers from the University of Helsinki in Finland found out that brains synchronize together even if the people themselves were not in the same place.
So how did they find this out? They used a specially designed game to test on 42 student participants, all of whom were all paired in two but were put separately in two different soundproof rooms.
The game was pretty simple: they control a race car around four different tracks, with one controlling the speed while the other deals with the direction. The participants would switch tasks after they’d completed a run and would play each track twice.
While they play, the participants had EEG (electroencephalography) scanners attached to their heads for the researchers to monitor their brain activity. The research team then found out that the player participants actually achieved brainwave synchronization, which also appeared to be the reason behind a duo’s success with the game.
Now there’s a whole lot of further research to be done regarding brain synchronization. Hopefully, further research like this one pops up soon as it may guide us toward a better understanding when it comes to team chemistry (and finding the perfect ka-duo).
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