<![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once - Kotaku Comments]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once - Kotaku Comments]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Ditto on the 4 at 15.

Where was the 8 point tracking test?

GenericKen

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @coalhalo:
I thought that was what I was saying.

Glad we agree.


SirDanF

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> No fair my refresh rate is so low that I get 16 dots on the screen at once at level 15.
But you know I got level 14 with 4 on my first try was that supposed to be difficult?

Echo_Hotel

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I feel like being trained by Obi-Won on lightsaber... "Use the force, Luke..."

Quasimodo X

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Most i can get on the first one is 13 and for 4 i get 9... though there are two provisos with those results.

1) I'm viewing on my laptop and the resolution is too small to actually get the whole square on the screen(!)

2) My laptop is a little crappy and sometimes lags video a second or two randomly meaning that if an object is travelling too fast i can't pick it up again when the video jumps to the new point without any of the intersecting points... I'll try again at home.

The tracking of multiple ones is actually easier for me than the single ones as i watch the area around the dots rather than the dots themselves. As long as the dots don't collide or cross over each other and as long as the ones that are off the screen are the only ones in that area then i don't lose them.

Duoae

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> yeah, i jumped to 15. 1 dot no problem.

4 dots i cranked it to 15 and i could keep track of them for a short while (i only tried once).

interesting test.

alby13

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> after thousands of hours playing rts and fps games I sure as hell can track more than twice that number while doing other calculations at the same time..

Kaedex

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I kicked that thing's ass! I got all of them on the first try on the highest speed. Yes, even the track four at a time one.

Zodiack

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @SirDanF:

The study challenges the widely held belief that there is a fixed limit that cannot be surpassed due to inherent physical limitations. Is there a maximum limit due to the design of the human body? Certainly; it is a safe assumption that our bodies will never be able to perform most capabilities beyond a certain range. But these cognitive experiments demonstrate that the previous agreed upon limitations are in fact not true. As we evolve genetically as a species, we will find that other phsyical barriers are being broken also.

coalhalo

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> No wonder I suck at RTSes.

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I'm not really sure I buy setting hard limits on perception, though. How many random assholes would you have to pull off the street before finding a sculptor equal to Michaelangelo? A study without an astronomically high sample set might find that no human could have produced The Last Judgement. Yet sculpture, like all high skill endeavors, is defined by the exceptions.

rateoforange

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> My old roomie said he could never manage Asteroids with so many apparently random movements, but he was real good at Tempest or other games where he could learn a pattern. He got a job with the government.

Knukleur

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Most I could track at 15 was two.

rateoforange

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I heard a while ago it was 7 objects/events.

CyberSkull

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @coalhalo:

First off, my comment about genetics setting an upper limit for skill level and the like can be brought up in a number of studies done in athletics. I'm at work right now but I can list plenty of studies for you later. There is nothing in the quote that goes against my assertion either.

The study shows that the upper limit of tracking objects by allocating attention, presumed at 4, is wrong. I still contend that there is an upper limit, just as there is an upper limit to how quickly a human can run 100 meters (which may or may not have been yet met).

The ability to track objects is based on a flexibly allocated resource, this draws an analogy of shared cache on multiple-core processors. There is still a finite amount of resources and therefore a finite number of objects that can be tracked. Genetics, I'm sure, also play a part in deciding how efficiently a person can allocate those resources.

It may be that an average person, when the original studies were done, could only track 4. Over the last few decades, the average IQ rating has been rising, and IQ itself is actually weighted higher on modern scales (i.e., someone who would rate at a 150 IQ twenty years ago may only rate at 130 today). I don't doubt that the general ability to track objects has become more sophisticated in that time, especially considering how modern communication methods offer more information in less time.

SirDanF

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> WOW I play way too much quake i did it! I got all 15 YAY! No lie if you use you Peripheral you can do it. Also too the frame rate made my eyes bleed.. Really give it a smoother frame rate and more people can do it. The problem spots are when two circles become close and there are not enough frames to see the actually direction it went. This happen all the time in quake when people warp... yet I always kill the cheating bastards!

@Sesstuna: your right bullet hells are way worst than this and are way funner because the animation is better too.

When does the sequel come out!

Runna

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Aahhh, I tracked all four circles to the end, but I only got three right, haha.

Interesting read if nothing more :)

Kenzya

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> three times to track 4 at 15. And i actually think it's easier if you DO stare at the crosshair without moving your eye around. This is a lot like the speed reading training... the idea being you focus on the entire area and try to actually let your brain do the work for you instead of trying to more directly follow the each individual ball.

Hate to say it .. but when i quit "thinking" about it and just kind of let my mind do it's thing i got it done. Kinda like in GTA when i'm talking to 3 friends at one time not paying much attention to actually playing the game and realize i have been doing 90 through heavy traffic on the NRG and i haven't so much as grazed a passing car.
Human brain ftw.

silkysm00th

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I think some of you are doing it wrong. Your supposed to only stare at the crosshairs without moving your eyes. In essence, a type of multitasking. Us gamers would tend to move our eyes with our main target and use peripheral vision or just spatial on other things happening (twitch gaming).

Other than that, those people that play those insane schmups would probably put this test to shame.

angry_gamer

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @Mact: Seriously, he resorts to name calling because someone posts their results, then proceeds to write about his personal problems?

qin

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> It is also proven that the human brain takes in millions of pieces of information a second, yet we can only process 2-3 things a second at a time.

Imagine all the shit we "miss"!

EnigmaNemesis

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> So... why should I give this a thought when I can wait until they come up with 11 objects in a few years or something of the sort?

Majorasblaze

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Urgh, Quicktime? No thanks!

in5ane

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Sounds like the participants should have played more Ikaruga.

Sesstuna

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @Reiichi:

Where can I get that game?!

Looks right up my alley.

Mact

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @Edge of Blade:

Emotional much?

I believe people are just stating their results. Since the study states that we can track no more than eight, four is not a big deal.

How about you go rave about your stepbrother to your stepbrother, and not to people on the internet? As you put it, we don't care.

Mact

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I went 1,10,15 on one ball and got all of them easily without looking away from the cross. Then I went to 15 on four balls and managed to track two, then I went to 10 and managed to track them easily so I went to 12, found out it was broken so I went to 13 and somehow couldn't get past the beginning so I went to 14. On the first try on 14 I managed to track 3 and on the second all four.

Is there anyway to get to track more balls?

Spiderbait

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @KLASHE said exactly what I had in mind. Ikaruga.

And all those clowns in circus that juggle zillions of things ;-)

retronaut

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @SirDanF:
"...genetics still determines the heightened limit of that training and how effective such training would be."

SirDanF, did you read the researchers,(George Alvarez & Steven Franconeri), published papers?

"The current study represents a challenge to the hypothesis that the number of objects that can be tracked is a fixed number, set by an architectural constraint...

Previous experiments have shown that observers can track a maximum of about 4 moving objects. A natural explanation for this capacity limit is that the visual system is architecturally limited to handling a fixed number of objects at once...In contrast to this view, Experiment 1 shows that tracking capacity is not fixed...Experiment 2 suggests that that the limit on tracking is related to the spatial resolution of attention. Combined, these results suggest that the number of objects that can be tracked depends on a flexibly allocated resource, and that allocating more resources to tracking a particular object increases the precision with which that object is selected...which has important implications for the mechanisms of object tracking and for the relationship between object tracking and other cognitive processes...These findings are consistent with the more general claim that attentional processing is not limited to a fixed number of items (Davis, Welch, Holmes, & Shepherd, 2001; Davis, 2004; Tripathy & Barret, 2004; Tripathy, Narasimhan, & Barret, 2007)."
-[cvcl.mit.edu]).pdf

The more research that gets done shows the previous belief that tracking capacity is pre-set by bodily limitations is false.



coalhalo

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Whenever I think of tracking stuff with peripheral vision, I'm reminded of this spell card from Imperishable Night.

[www.youtube.com]

I hate that spell card so much.

Reiichi

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> 8 moving objects...
Tell that to Ikaruga.


Klashe

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @Vexorg:

No doubt.

dead_red_eyes

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @SolCutter:

Or any Cave stuff for that matter. I'd be interested to see what results they'd get from this test if they performed it on a world class bullet hell shmupper.

Vexorg

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> i'm running on 21 year old hardware, gods i need an upgrade, that's almost as old as Atari :(

HikariOblivion

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Wait.

People are competing for high scores on a statistical testing program?

Oooh, gamers.

ego531

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> reminds me of japanese bullet hells as well =P why are they so much fun?

Mii

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @kwant: Hard to compare that, bullethell games the shots are always using a pattern, which make it easy to calculate and follow.

MugiMugi

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Okay I can't get past 3 on the easy one, maybe this is why I suck at videogames.

Though I think it seems really difficult because the balls don't move in smoothe paths, they keep jumping around occasionally.

overlord_x

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @onikuwagata: Yeah, I've got that problem too right now at work. I can do 1 dot fine on all speeds so long as I scroll, but 4 is impossible since some can go high and low at the same time.

Camann

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I couldn't do this test properly because my brain kept wanting to dodge that little crosshair out of the way of getting smashed by dots...too many bullet-hell shooters here.

Dragoonkin

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> This was an interesting test. Now makes sense why when I'm playing something like Halo and I hit a heavy fire zone I get blind sided by a shot by someone I saw. Too busy tracking other threats even though I know there are other imminent ones. Maybe that's a bad analogy? Makes sense to me!

Otherwise interesting find guys.

typetenchi

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I got...oh look a bird..what was i saying again? anyway my eye's suck so i can't track em all on the first few tries

FP Bleentastic has cake

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> "I got 15 on my first try."

Here's a cookie, you inadequate prick.

Seriously, I have this step brother either is or thinks he is good at everything. He also has an incessant need to state his superiority at everything when he has the chance... and ESPECIALLY when no one cares.

Edge of Blade

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @kwant:

Yea def.

Tracked 4 on 15 in one try. Thank you GigaWing Generations and the Touhou/Shanghai Alice Games

MaoChan

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Guess that ruins my idea for the game "1000 moving dots on screen that you must follow"

...back to the drawing board...

JGab

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> It's hard when your browser's area is smaller than the screen.

onikuwagata

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Okay. Figured it out. Press 'play'.

At least my confidence is boosted since I did

1, 15 then 4, 15.

Got both right first try.

I was expecting more, to be honest.

Mact

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Meh. Figured it out.

It ran smoothly, but I still manage all four on 15 first try. Didn't even try the other speed levels.

I want to try eight. That, or give me faster speeds.

Mact

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> My computer monitor at work isn't big enough to fit the entire test area on the screen... I'll have to try it at home.

Aith

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> play a few japanese shmups and see how many dots you can track.

kwant

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I got 15 on the single on my first try but (I went 1 > 7 > 15) but I seemed to have capped out around 10 on the 4 targets at once thing.

donjo

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Woo! I got 15 on my first try for all 4! Which is strange, because it took three tries for the test before it. I jumped past many of the middle ones, so the lack of progression to that speed may have played a factor.

Or it could be a trick to weed out liers and those weren't actually the ones that blinked, in which case I missed it, but I still feel accomplished having quasi-completed the test.

I think I could track more than 8 at a speed like 1, though. I'm interested to try, even if just to be dizzied by the number of moving dots there would have to be on screen for such a test.

Heliophage

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Apparently researchers have never heard of Imperishable Night. :)

SolCutter

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @Tonx:

I doubt Wayne Gretzky can actually track that many objects at once. This test requires tracking mainly in peripheral vision by concentrating your vision on one object and concentrating on paying attention to where the other objects are. Moving your eyes back and forth allows greater cognition of your surroundings. A combination of skill and knowledge of predicting how plays are constructed and changing your vision's focus every so often to refresh sets of objects can lend to better tracking of more objects.

Not all gamers will always be able to track so many objects. Any skill can be improved with training, but genetics still determines the heightened limit of that training and how effective such training would be. Still, it would be interesting to see if scientists were to take some of the top gamers and test their tracking abilities.

SirDanF

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Problem with this test is the framerate, maybe its my monitor setting.

I can track 4 at 10 no sweat, I tried 15 next and the framerate is so bad that the balls split into lines of four balls and when they pass one another they overlap.

Astrofox

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Anyone else not having the test site work properly?

It loads, but then there is no blink and no movement.

Mact

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @TheCakeIsALie: lol cookies each for effort though

noliferuin (PSN+XBL)

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @nolifedopestar: Then I guess we BOTH lose. :P

TheCakeIsALie

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> no wonder i can't break a million in geometry wars...

xaosoax

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I had no trouble with any of these. Even tracking the four at speed 15. I'd like to try tracking eight.

xopher314

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @TheCakeIsALie: and @jjpember: he wanted a real world example of something that typically moves at that speed :p not a metric to imperial conversion

noliferuin (PSN+XBL)

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Translating it into mph is pointless. Heck, having it in meters per second is pointless. The only speed that matters is angular speed relative to our eyes.

I have no problem tracking a jet flying a couple hundred miles per hour, but that's because it's very far away from me and appears to be moving slowly. 0.15 m/s at what distance? .5 - 1 meter? Back up a little and you can track much faster things.

Improbable

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Interesting...

blacksamurai87

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> isn't the speed related to the size of the area in which you are tracking? bigger area, lfaster speed, more likely to track for a longer period of time?

so this speed means nothing in real world context, because you could track people walking around a big open room at speeds in excess of 1 mph. certainly i can track more than one person walking (crawling) around at .3 mph

it's all relative.

sadkermit - soon to be banned for standing up to the ummm nazi.

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @jjpember: Haha, I win by mere seconds :P

But I had more decimal places, and we all know that's what really counts.

^_^

TheCakeIsALie

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I like jjpember's formula better.

JRock

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Can't do 4 moving things at same time. Brain hurt... Should try things like this early in day not now. Brain hurt! Ow! I think I'll lie down....

NunianVonFuch

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> @TheCakeIsALie: you beat me to it, but my list is more complete

jjpember

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> .15 meters/second ~ 6 inches/second ~ 30 feet/minute ~ 0.34 miles/hour

jjpember

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> "I wish that I could put such a speed into real world context"

[ 0.15 m/s x 100cm/m x 1in/2.54cm x 1mile/63360in x 60s/min x 60min/hr ]

0.15 m/s = 0.3355 miles per hour (mph)

; )

TheCakeIsALie

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Wayne Gretzky could handle twelve objects moving at high speeds - (ten players, one goalie at a time, and one puck). It's what made him so great. There are always exceptions, and expect gamers to break the limits just as often as atheletes. Y'know, per capita.

Tonx

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> Anyone else go 1,2,15?

jacksinn

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> I got all 4 at 15 on my second try...

MrXmas

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> isnt this more to do with our eyes than our brains? like the amount of frames per second that constitutes movement to us

noliferuin (PSN+XBL)

]]> <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> took me like 4-5 tries to get #15 down

ElderOfNar

]]>