Missing Lobe Shift as Gamist Tell

[Jason Lee]

Wow, that subject title doesn't make any sense, does it?

(Everything contained herein subject to the disclaimer that I am not a neurologist, psychiatrist or anything else remotely knowledgeable in this matter.)

I have a tendency to have trouble calculating success totals when I'm playing.  I stop, I say "Uhhh...", I point at the numbers on my sheet, and eventually I manage to add three single digit numbers together.  By no stretch of the imagination am I bad at math.  And realistically, with math that simple, who is bad at it?

One theory (I wish I could remember which thread it was discussed in) is that this slowdown is caused by having to switch from predominately right brain function to left brain function.

Given that Gamism is a strategic process, it seems predominately left brain to me.

Therefore, my hypothesis is that a failure to exhibit this slowdown indicates that the right brain is not particularly active.  This can mean you're bored, or that you're already operating in left brain mode.  Hence, a lack of slow down may indicate a Gamist priority (at that moment anyway).  This seems to match with my personal experiences.  My ability to total dice values increases significantly when I'm bored, and those I play with who I'd classify as gamist do not exhibit the mental stutter.

[Eero Tuovinen]

(Everything contained herein subject to the disclaimer that I am not a neurologist, psychiatrist or anything else remotely knowledgeable in this matter.)

Nor am I, but is this some kind of a lark? AfaIk neurology hasn't for a long time been us simple as this left/right division tries to make it. It's an oversimplification of an outdated theory, if I remember anything.

Anyway, if we assume some credibility to this, I'm not at all sure if non-gamist roleplaying would necessarily be tied to right-brain function. As some might have grogged by now, I'm singularly cold in my roleplaying as far as decisionmaking goes. I analyze the game situation and structure an answer, none of this touchy feely stuff in there. Does this mean that I'm gamist? Not likely, it just means I'm not a big immersionist. Agendas cannot be characterized by the psychological prosesses that produce them because the phenomenon of CAs is itself sociological: for example gamism is a need of challenge, and that isn't specifically emotional or rational. Rather it's the other way around, with certain emotional and rational drives manifesting in the competion.

Incidentally, I have no trouble with simple math whether I'm invested in the game or not. Could very well be because my investment is different than yours, but I'm not buying that it's because I'm gamist ;)

[montag]

It's an oversimplification of an outdated theory, if I remember anything.

I'm just a simple psychologist and a prejudiced one in this matter, but I'd say that's quite right. Still, there's really no need to tease apart the neurological issue, considering handedness, sex differences and the validity of neuro-research methods, as the analytic/holistic distinction and the emotional/rational distinction can easily be discussed without reference to brain structures, since they are (to a certain extent, which in turn is not worth detailing) personality traits. That is, people on average tend to favour one over the other (to varying degrees, and ignoring the effect of situation for the moment), that is, people do have something like a "cognitive style", a favourite way of approaching stuff with their minds. No need to bring in neurology.
FWIW, I think these styles are unrelated to CAs, but that's just a layman's opinion. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

[Jason Lee]

Please forgive the post slaughter.

Nor am I, but is this some kind of a lark? AfaIk neurology hasn't for a long time been us simple as this left/right division tries to make it. It's an oversimplification of an outdated theory, if I remember anything.

I'm just a simple psychologist and a prejudiced one in this matter, but I'd say that's quite right. Still, there's really no need to tease apart the neurological issue, considering handedness, sex differences and the validity of neuro-research methods, as the analytic/holistic distinction and the emotional/rational distinction can easily be discussed without reference to brain structures, since they are (to a certain extent, which in turn is not worth detailing) personality traits. That is, people on average tend to favour one over the other (to varying degrees, and ignoring the effect of situation for the moment), that is, people do have something like a "cognitive style", a favourite way of approaching stuff with their minds. No need to bring in neurology.

I'm definitely willing to accept that I don't know what I'm talking about and that the left/right brain division is false.  Though, I'll agree with Markus in that it's safe to leave the neurology out of it, while still being able to discuss the emotional/rational cognitive division.

Interesting side note:  The divisions analytical/holistic and emotional/rational bear a striking resemblance to Wizards of the Coast's model.  (Two axes:  Stategic/Tactical and Story/Combat.  It was built from their marketing survey, which we unfortunately don't have the data from to double check their work.  It can be found here, if you're curious.)

[Jason Lee]

Anyway, if we assume some credibility to this, I'm not at all sure if non-gamist roleplaying would necessarily be tied to right-brain function. As some might have grogged by now, I'm singularly cold in my roleplaying as far as decisionmaking goes. I analyze the game situation and structure an answer, none of this touchy feely stuff in there. Does this mean that I'm gamist? Not likely, it just means I'm not a big immersionist.  Agendas cannot be characterized by the psychological prosesses that produce them because the phenomenon of CAs is itself sociological: for example gamism is a need of challenge, and that isn't specifically emotional or rational. Rather it's the other way around, with certain emotional and rational drives manifesting in the competion.

I'm not really seeing the psychological/sociological distinction you're drawing, fortunately I don't think it makes much difference if we agree on that.  The key issue seems to be whether or not Gamism and a rational mode of thought occur together consistently.  Which might be the point contention, as I believe they do.

Incidentally, I have no trouble with simple math whether I'm invested in the game or not. Could very well be because my investment is different than yours, but I'm not buying that it's because I'm gamist ;)

If you're already in a rational mode of thought (as stated earlier), the lack of slow down doesn't surprise me.  With this particular tell I'm not going to try to say it's a guarantee that Gamism is at work.  You may be thinking rationally for other reasons, like boredom in my case.  My thinking is that Gamism may be linked to a rational mode of thought, and that the lack of slow down when asked to do math is an indicator of a rational mode of thought.

So a question then, does this slowdown ever occur for you?  If so, why?

[Jason Lee]

FWIW, I think these styles are unrelated to CAs, but that's just a layman's opinion. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

I don't really have any evidence that they do other than it makes sense to me and seems to fit with my personal experiences.  However, I would like to add the disclaimer that even though I think Gamism is linked to a rational mode of thought and Nar to an emotional one, that I make no assumptions outside of actual play.  I'm not willing, at this point anyway, to try to connect a person's preferred CA to their everyday personality - I'd certainly make an awful mess of such an attempt.

[beingfrank]

I think that if people do have preferred CAs, then they're probably linked to some personality traits, in the same way that research has shown correlations between some personality traits and preferences for different styles of music and art.  Finding out would be nifty (I'd love to do that study myself, but there's no chance of that happening), but probably a pretty low priority.

However, I would like to add the disclaimer that even though I think Gamism is linked to a rational mode of thought and Nar to an emotional one, that I make no assumptions outside of actual play.

That's an interesting and tricky question in itself.  As you say, we're not at a point where we can make assumptions.  However, my own personal view is that Gamism is probably linked to an emotional mode of thought rather than a rational one.  Gamism is about putting something on the line (as I understand it, and I'm now entirely au fait yet), and I'd characterise the enjoyment that comes from that as an emotional process.  One might solve it rationally, but the motivation seems more emotional than rational.

Similarly, I could argue for Nar as linked to a rational mode of thought.  Basically, it could go either way, there are reasonable arguments for both.  It would be great to know one way or the other, but I can't think of an easy way of establishing that.

Drifts off into crazed visions of taking a fMRI to my next session.

Don't mind me.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'm not really seeing the psychological/sociological distinction you're drawing, fortunately I don't think it makes much difference if we agree on that.  The key issue seems to be whether or not Gamism and a rational mode of thought occur together consistently.  Which might be the point contention, as I believe they do.

To the contrary, the sociological nature of the CAs is my counterpoint. Why does someone play in a gamist way? It might be because they want to have the feeling of competence that results from winning, or that they like the clash of intellects present in the best gamist games, for example. The former is an emotional motivation, the latter rational, and these are just a couple of possibilities. CAs aren't tied to specific psychological states.

As to gamism being rational and narrativism emotional, in real life I've found things to be the opposite if anything. People frequently bitch against narrativist technique because it distances them from the action and character immersion. On the other hand I know almost no rational gamists; the great majority is in the gamist business largely to get to feel superior towards others. They whine and whine and break all the rules they can get away with, and break down themselves if they lose, all in a search for the emotional shot of feel-good. Nothing rational there.

The above is just to point out that the case can be argued both ways, mainly because all agendas can result from a number of psychological situations. It'd sure be interesting to list some reasons for why someone might be f.ex. gamist, psychologically speaking, but I'd expect that the reasons would in each case be various.

So a question then, does this slowdown ever occur for you?  If so, why?

Actually, I get a slowdown when we have a calculation on the table for all to see. I tend to assume that someone else will do it, and therefore won't focus on solving it. Also I slow down when I'm tired. Neither of these seems to me to be linked to a agenda ;)

[Rob Carriere]

Cruciel,
Yes, I do experience that slowdown and it is usually accompanied with irritation (as you might guess, I'm not a fan of high-contact System). I'm not convinced that it is related to Gamism or the lack of it, though. Both strategy and tactics can be highly analytical or highly pattern-based, or anywhere in-between, depending on the nature of the challenge and especially depending on the nature of the individual.

You're definitely onto something, but I suspect it is an axis orthogonal to the GNS modes.

Then again, do I look like a psychologist?  :-)
SR
--

[montag]

Actually, I get a slowdown when we have a calculation on the table for all to see. I tend to assume that someone else will do it, and therefore won't focus on solving it.

This seems on-topic, so I'll jump in:
that's called (not 100 percent sure on English terminology) "responsibility diffusion" (and is usually discussed as a major barrier to altruistic behaviour). It explains why occasionally lots of bystanders will not help a person in need, though they are able to help and aware that help is needed (failure to notice the latter is called "pluralistic/collective ignorance", the major factor in that is the idea "No one else is helping, hence no help is needed, otherwise someone certainly would help.").
As far as altruistic behaviour is concerned, the usual recommendation for those in need is to address one person in particular and to specify the kind of help one expects. Applied to gaming that IMO simply means making sure to establish who is ultimately responsible for such "open calculations" is actually more likely to get the group involved than leaving that responsibility open.

@Claire: given the bunch of social scientists around here and the number of extremely clever "laymen" it should be possible to work out a way to gather "harder" empirical data to complement the anecdotal observations in Actual Play. IIRC John Kim once created a questionnaire to that end, which might be worth revisiting.

[John Kim]

Actually, I get a slowdown when we have a calculation on the table for all to see. I tend to assume that someone else will do it, and therefore won't focus on solving it.

@Claire: given the bunch of social scientists around here and the number of extremely clever "laymen" it should be possible to work out a way to gather "harder" empirical data to complement the anecdotal observations in Actual Play. IIRC John Kim once created a questionnaire to that end, which might be worth revisiting.

Hmmm.  This could be the old "Plot Issue Questions" page that I had, which came from old rgfa posts -- particularly by David A. Bonar and Mary Kuhner.  I haven't touched it or dealt with it in years, though.  It's at
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/plot/questions.html

There is also M.J. Young's "Gamer Preference Quiz" which was developed for GNS preferences several years ago (2000?).  
http://www.mjyoung.net/rpg/gametype.html

For what it's worth, my experience goes against the idea.  I'm one of those who isn't bothered much by calculations during play once I've learned them -- I'm more concerned with the speed of physical actions like collecting all the dice.  However, I see myself as pretty anti-Gamist in most cases.  Based on my experience, I see Gamists as being a roughly equal split between the rational, tactical types (often labelled "rules-lawyers") and the more social, emotional types ("wheedlers").

[Jason Lee]

Unfortunately, this response is going to be shorter than I'd like.  I hope to elaborate later.

The use of the word 'emotional' may have been a mistake on my part, because of the multitude of definitions that it has.

I'm all for the idea that Gamism is motivated by feeling, that gamist players may be seeking social rewards, and that social dysfunctions may arise from any GNS mode.  I'll agree with Claire and Eero who both said something like that (correct me if that wasn't what you meant).  However, I don't think that's related to what I'm trying to get at.

Let's see if I can explain.  The following will have a series of poorly explained logic jumps.
• It's likely that the slow down I'm seeing may be caused by disengagement of whatever cognitive method allows one to do math.
• Whatever cognitive method allows one to do math seems distinct from whatever cognitive method allows one to empathize.
• Identification with character (empathy) is necessary to engage  (engage - not just witness) in Premise.  
• Therefore, Nar (enaging in Premise) is using a distinct mode of thought from whatever cognitive method allows one to do math.
• Therefore, the slow down I'm seeing seems to occur with something other than functional Nar.  That's Gamism and disconnect from play in my point of view, those who believe in Sim may have another view.

As Rob pointed out, this might not be directly related to GNS.  It might very well be related to something like Pawn stance, and I've just drawn a correlation between it and Gamism.  It could also be something completely different.  I'm interested in nailing down what specifically causes otherwise math competent people to flounder with simple addition in play.

*****
John,

I'll have to think some about wheedlers, as I'm not certain where they fit in.

*****

And Eero, would you classify yourself as primarily Nar?  Like John, you may simply not experience the slow down (except for being tired or not paying attention), so your agenda may not be relevant (that sounds bad, doesn't it?).  I'm just curious.

[beingfrank]

Unfortunately, this response is going to be shorter than I'd like.  I hope to elaborate later.

I know the feeling.  There's so much I want to say on this topic, and I just simply don't have the time right now to put my ideas in order, or check the stuff I need to in order to say anything vaguely helpful.

The use of the word 'emotional' may have been a mistake on my part, because of the multitude of definitions that it has.

I'm all for the idea that Gamism is motivated by feeling, that gamist players may be seeking social rewards, and that social dysfunctions may arise from any GNS mode.  I'll agree with Claire and Eero who both said something like that (correct me if that wasn't what you meant).  However, I don't think that's related to what I'm trying to get at.

I'd like to clarify that I wasn't directly adressing your original point, but adding on something related.  What I was trying to say is partly covered by your above summary, but I was trying to say a bit more.  I wasn't just saying that gamist players are motivated by emotion to seek social rewards, but that they're motivated by emotion to seek all sorts of rewards.  That they step up to challenge at least in part because they're emotionally invested in the outcome/winning/doing something cool.  I'd argue that the pay off in gamist play is more emotional than rational.  It's the fist pumping, yay! moment.  The throwing yourself on the couch, sobbing and thumping pillows in despair as a beautiful plan fails on a bad roll (or maybe that's just me?).  All of that seems an emotional pay off rather than a rational one.  But I may be wrong in my understanding of gamist play.  I very rarely do it myself, spend the first part of the session bitching about how much I hate it, then finally get into it and have a great time, so I suspect my perspective is rather warped.

Let's see if I can explain.  The following will have a series of poorly explained logic jumps.
• It's likely that the slow down I'm seeing may be caused by disengagement of whatever cognitive method allows one to do math.

It could well be.  It would be interesting to compare the time taken to do other tasks in the middle of roleplaying.  Like timing how long it takes people to do a couple of verbal intelligence questions, or a couple of social problem solving questions and so on, at regular intervals during roleplaying and comparing the different results.

• Whatever cognitive method allows one to do math seems distinct from whatever cognitive method allows one to empathize.

Ok, I can go with that as a hypothesis.

• Identification with character (empathy) is necessary to engage  (engage - not just witness) in Premise.

That's a bit more uncertain.  But I can't think of a clever way of establishing it.  Perhaps you could prime people to have low or high empathy before a roleplaying incident and then see if they engage in Premise more?

• Therefore, Nar (enaging in Premise) is using a distinct mode of thought from whatever cognitive method allows one to do math.
• Therefore, the slow down I'm seeing seems to occur with something other than functional Nar.  That's Gamism and disconnect from play in my point of view, those who believe in Sim may have another view.

I think you're on much shakier ground here.  You risk circularity.

- I suck at maths during Nar play.
- Maths is a different cognitive process from empathy.
- Nar play involes empathy.
- I suck at maths during Nar play.
- I don't suck at maths during Gam play.[/list:u]

I'm not suggesting that's what you're saying.  I think you need to clarify your argument further so that it doesnt' run the risk of appearing like this.

As Rob pointed out, this might not be directly related to GNS.  It might very well be related to something like Pawn stance, and I've just drawn a correlation between it and Gamism.  It could also be something completely different.  I'm interested in nailing down what specifically causes otherwise math competent people to flounder with simple addition in play.

I think that this is a brilliant question.  And potentially one where we could get some actual answers.

I mean, it would be feasible to get people to set an alarm to go off during their next session, when it goes off, they all do 10 maths problems and time themselves.  It could happen a number of times in long sessions.  Then they mark their times with what CA they think they're using (ok, so it's a crude measure, but it would be ok for a first run, and until some other measure of CA becomes available).  We collate data and compare.

That might let us know if your observation is a general phenomena, and then we can move on to work out why on earth it happens.

Now I'm excited about this idea.  :-)[/i]

[Eero Tuovinen]

Let's see if I can explain.  The following will have a series of poorly explained logic jumps.
• It's likely that the slow down I'm seeing may be caused by disengagement of whatever cognitive method allows one to do math.
• Whatever cognitive method allows one to do math seems distinct from whatever cognitive method allows one to empathize.

Acceptable for the sake of argument, for now.

• Identification with character (empathy) is necessary to engage  (engage - not just witness) in Premise.  

This I don't buy. I'm primarily narrativist, but don't deem empathy a very important quality for my kind of nar - in fact I tend to think of empathy as a sim quality.

Consider: I routinely play narrativism biased games - the latest being MLwM, which I've played quite a bit in the last month. For me nar is about manipulation of story objects. Good nar is where the players recognize the issues at hand, distill them in artistic form and deliver them with power. If there's empathy there, it's not a necessary quality for the act itself. It's certainly possible that my empathy is triggered without me knowing about it, but that'd depend on your exact definition of empathy - I don't see it.

A sim player has, or might have, empathy for the characters in the game. He might even immerse there. The narrativist is more interested in the choices those characters represent - no need for empathy there. I myself need marrativism an analytic and creative act, not an emotional one.

• Therefore, Nar (enaging in Premise) is using a distinct mode of thought from whatever cognitive method allows one to do math.

Follows from the last one.

• Therefore, the slow down I'm seeing seems to occur with something other than functional Nar.  That's Gamism and disconnect from play in my point of view, those who believe in Sim may have another view.

Assumes that the psychological features you've recognized - calculation and empathy, to be precise, are primarily connected to certain CAs. As I noted before, I would deem such connections specific cases, each to be considered without bias from others. Some psych feature might have something to do with a CA, while some might not. Here you assume that it has to be this way.

It's really the same case as with the techniques of the game, just from the other side of the equation. The CAs are empirical social designations, and therefore it's pure chance if a given technique or psychological trait will match tidily with a CA. Your example just proves this. Some of us play nar with empathy and (I presume) a bit of immersion, while for some it's pure pawn stance and enjoyment from the story qualities, not the characters.

As Rob pointed out, this might not be directly related to GNS.  It might very well be related to something like Pawn stance, and I've just drawn a correlation between it and Gamism.  It could also be something completely different.  I'm interested in nailing down what specifically causes otherwise math competent people to flounder with simple addition in play.

The general answer is not connected to the CAs at least, IMO. It'd probably be more fruitful to consider whether some techniques of play are connected. It'd seem to me that certain ways of playing, like character immersion, are much more fixed psych-wise than the agendas are. You have to feel the character to play immersion, and you cannot feel it if you play rules-lawyer, as examples.

And Eero, would you classify yourself as primarily Nar?  Like John, you may simply not experience the slow down (except for being tired or not paying attention), so your agenda may not be relevant (that sounds bad, doesn't it?).  I'm just curious.

As mentioned, I'm primarily nar if anything. I've played as a player comparatively little, but my years as the GM have developed quite the sense for premise, not to speak of my other literary pursuits. If I get to choose between faciliating gam, sim or nar I choose nar if the social contract doesn't stop me.

You are correct that a single case won't prove much. However, the burden of proof seems to lie on the new theory :)

[montag]

Let's see if I can explain.  The following will have a series of poorly explained logic jumps.
• It's likely that the slow down I'm seeing may be caused by disengagement of whatever cognitive method allows one to do math.
• Whatever cognitive method allows one to do math seems distinct from whatever cognitive method allows one to empathize.

Ok, going from a doctoral thesis (in German) published in August 2003, written by a good friend, on developmental psychology aspects of dyscalculia.
It seems fairly safe to say, that the range of processes we're talking about here is pretty basic and as such unlikely to warrant a devoted kognitive subsystem/module (we might argue about a module for the representation of numbers and sets, but we're primarily concerned with the processes of addition, substraction, comparison etc. here, right?).
Now, IMO the biggest factors in that performance (at this low level, just above subitizing) will be attention and working memory (The Baddeley & Hitch approach with it's quite capable "Central Executive" can handle almost all small scale stuff), precisely because the process is so simple (so that actual algebraic processing power doesn't enter into the equation).
Working from that, I'd offer the following possible explanations for inability to add three single digit numbers:
- loss of attention: especially in long term task of attention people have lapses, more of them if the task is particularly boring
- interference/dual task: you're occupied with something else and don't divert sufficient resorces to the dice
- sequencing problems: sequencing presumable plays a major role in arithmetics. Mixing Baddeley & Hitch's phonological loop with the within-between stream stuff from Jones & Macken it has been found that irrelevant and variable noise (people talking) impairs memory processes based on rehearsal. It unlikely though possible, that listening to the others talk make yous you mix up or forget the numbers.
- the central executive (according to Baddeley & Logie) among other things relevant to mental arithmetic is also supposed to retrive results for well known problems from long term memory (everything below 20 is usually assumed to be "well known"), so the problem might again be, that you're focussed elsewhere and can't access the result directly, as you'd usually do, and then stumble when having to rely on a mechanical, conscious application of the addition procedure.
Finally, yes, emotions can get in the way of almost anything (would be interesting to hook you up to an EKG ;) but IMHO you are just devoting ressources to unevenly, (if you have problems with switsching tasks in general, field dependece (Witkin) might be relevant as well) and have trouble re-focussing on the new task. I find it hard to believe that your emotional engagement is so incredibly intense that you can no longer do basic calculus.

[Afterthought: creativity is divergent production accoriding to Guilford's structure of intellect model (an intelligence theory), no idea what calculus is, but pretty sure it isn't divergent)