BBC: “Tetris, trauma and the brain”

Tetris, trauma and the brain:

In a remarkable experiment involving footage taken at the scenes of car crashes and clips of old public information films, Dr. Holmes is using the computer game Tetris to disrupt the processes in the brain involved in laying down painful memories, dramatically reducing the impact of recalled trauma.

The results showed that the volunteers who played Tetris experienced about half as many flashbacks as the control group, and that those memories were less vivid or disturbing.

The point about Tetris, Dr. Holmes concludes, is that it employs many of the same areas of the brain — to do with visual processing and coordinating thoughts and actions — that are involved in laying down memories.

“Memory is a very important component of our person-hood, our self-hood. We are what we are because of all the experiences we’ve had.”

What most stood out to me in this article was actually not the therapeutic aspect of play — though this is certainly exciting stuff. Rather, I was most intrigued by Dr. Holmes’ conclusion that the studied game play employed many of the same areas of the brain as are involved in forming memories.

I’m working on a future post that proposes a relational and collaborative focus for developing innovative and successful play technologies. My thought is that such an approach will yield far richer user experiences than can mere amusement. Taking into account the mechanics of memory formation could prove to be a key element of the concept.

(via Stuart Brown, M.D.)