MAGAZINE: Intelligence
|
|
Tetris: intelligence building blocks?
This famous electronic game consists of piling up bricks, and it has proven to be quite a neuron stimulator. What a coincidence, that’s exactly what its creator intended!
Created by Alexey Pazhitnov in 1985, this young Russian developer sought to come up with a game that was easy to play in the start, before gradually gaining in difficulty. The tens of millions of Tetris aficionados probably don’t know this, but this unique game actually keeps their brains in shape.
No need to bust your bricks to keep your brain healthy, all you need to do is pile them up intelligently. The game spearheaded an American study aimed at determining what mental mechanisms this game triggered in the brain. A group of researchers from the University of San Diego studied the impact this game had on the brain cells. They found that playing Tetris helps the brain stimulate an impressive ability to manage many events simultaneously. The object of Tetris is to manipulate brick shapes with the aim of creating a horizontal line of blocks without gaps. When such a line is created, it disappears, and the blocks above (if any) fall. As the game progresses, the bricks fall faster
Alexey Pazhitnov explains that he had read a book on the brain and learned that the brain’s immediate memory could retain 7 elements instantaneously. Tetris bricks also are comprised of 7 different shapes. The game’s unique attribute is to promulgate this memory to its full capacity. The San Diego researchers discovered that Tetris fans scored 10 points higher in the logical and visual chapters of IQ tests: the two pillars of general intelligence, quite similar to the IQ tests we have available online. Does one need to play innumerable hours of this game in order to heal and repair brain neurons? Perhaps a light but regular schedule of game-playing would suffice.
Calculate your IQ
or
Take the IQ test for children
Learn more about our Intelligence Tests!
|
