URGENT! Psychology Study

[custardchuk]

How are your chances of attending the 2007 International World Championship?  I'll be there, as will custardchuk, C. Urbanus, the Saint, the Midnight Rider, and many others.

Really, the only thing we hold against you is the fact that you've never made it to Toronto. 

Nice to see you are maintaining your impartiality, Rosh. Maybe we should ask OJ, Charlie Manson, Hinkley etc.

chuk

[The Saint]

THIS JUST IN!

The Wojek Smallsoa Fund for the betterment of RPS has agreed to donate 50%! of their annual donations for this study! That means every professional that participates in the study will be provided with one stick bazooka joe bubble gum for their participation!

(limited to 3 entrants)

[Jef Hallestone]

The Wojek Smallsoa Fund for the betterment of RPS has agreed to donate 50%! of their annual donations for this study! That means every professional that participates in the study will be provided with one stick bazooka joe bubble gum for their participation!

You are a brave man to mock Wojek like that. I guess as the Silver medalist you can get away with such clownishness, but look out should you not place well this year...that is all I can say.

If there is one thing we all know about Wojek is that if you crack the wrong joke at the wrong time, heck even the right joke at the right time (or in my case the right joke at almost the right time) his wrath can come down hard (and usually with all your coworkers around)

PS - What still bugs me is that somehow James cracked the wrong joke at the right time and now Wojek's is always talks about the Hilarity of Hagherty's wit.

[The Saint]

Don't get me wrong, that wasn't a crack at Wojek himself. But rather the people who have somehow fanagled their way into running the fund (or lack thereof). Just trying to give a little motivation to the department.

I'm in no position to mock Wojek. Anyone that can figure out how to legally keep 99% of a fund thats supposed to be non profit is a genius. I mean... he is the father of modern RPS as we know it.

[martinburley]

Here's a different psychology study that might be of some interest to your researchers, Saint.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-09/staring.html

Here's a summary of it for those who've got better things to do with their time than plough through the whole paper.

The researchers wanted to see whether a study which found people can sense when they're being stared at was accurate. Participants in the study were asked to guess whether they were being stared at or not, across a number of trials.

It turned out the study was flawed because the sequences used in the experiment weren't truly random (the results - 'stare' or 'no stare' - repeated 39% of the time on average, compared to 50% of the time for true random patterns), and the participants were able to implicitly learn those sequences since they were told each time whether they were right or not. (When truly random sequences were used, and no feedback was given along the way, results were no better than chance expectation.)

By the final set of 60 trials, the average score was 35/60 - 58% accuracy. In other words, the average person's ability to detect and learn patterns subconsciously led them to improve their performance significantly by the end of the trials. It's pretty likely that the average score would increase further if the participants had been deliberately focusing on trying to notice the patterns (rather than sense when they're being stared at).

The researchers summarised their findings thus:

It appears likely that the subjects in the staring research are able to score above chance as a consequence of being able to learn the non-random patterns in the sequences using the feedback. This idea receives support from the literature on "implicit learning," which suggests that the learning can take place incidentally without conscious awareness (Reber 1989). There is a huge literature on "probability learning" that suggests people are very good at learning the global and local probabilities in the patterning of events (e.g., Servan-Schreiber and Anderson 1990). [...] The fact that starees can guess when staring is occurring at above-chance levels therefore demonstrates nothing other than an ability to notice patterns. This is a low-level ability that even a mouse can manage.

The dismissive last sentence notwithstanding, the flipside of this conclusion is that pattern recognition ability is likely to play a significant role in RPS. It's clear from this study that most people have a significant level of Pattern Detection Skill, even for subconsciously detecting patterns in pseudo-random sequences, and it seems certain that this skill would translate across to RPS where people are consciously trying to detect patterns in sequences that are rarely even pseudo-random. People with good Pattern Detection Skill have an advantage in RPS over less perceptive opponents. So it'll be interesting to see if your researchers also find good evidence for Pattern Detection, and to assess how useful a skill it is relative to Reading Intended Movements and Expressive Control.

[Master Roshambollah]

Spot on, Martin.

RPS not only rewards pattern recognition, it also encourages this trait.  By playing RPS regularly, one stimulates the brain's faculties for recognizing other patterns as well.  RPS is already in use in several major geriatric care facilities, as much for preventing the onset of senility as to keep the motor skills in tune and provide a much needed social outlet.

When one plays RPS very often (and this standard probably only applies to a few dozen of the world's top players,) a different type of pattern recognition develops.  Instead of merely being able to sense a single opponent's patterns, one comes to learn various broad types of patterns.  Many times, while playing against a new opponent in an exhibition match, I feel as if I've played the exact game before.  I have.  Learning these broad patterns (with your cells and your hands, not your brain) generates a great gulf between such an athlete and an average player. 

This can be used against one, however.  The Roshambollah Trap was created after several years of playtesting, and hinges on the tendency of a great number of players (but not all of them) to never double up throws.  However, the Rosh Trap will consistently fall prey to the Avalanche, which is kid's stuff.  This is where adaptability comes to the aid of unassisted pattern recognition.  If a player has doubled throws once, he or she is clearly capable of doing it again.  It takes more than just recognizing the pattern; one has to act decisively.  It is not enough to know that the house is on fire; one must also know out of which window to jump.

[The Saint]

Brief update, I'm in boston and we've completed the testing. I've put a lot of peoples questions to rest about luck in RPS. I played a total of 26 people and I went 22-4 in best of 3 first to 10 (they misinterpreted our suggestions), I had a win percentage of 85%. More to come when they give me more calculations, and whatever other studies they're doing. Needless to say with the extended play format my arms are fatigued, which could have played a part in my final match loss. Im to go get rid of the pain, the only way i know how.

[martinburley]

Wow, The Saint, congratulations on your brilliant performance today! You clearly took your best game along with you, and you fully deserve your recuperative post-match refreshments.

While you're waiting for their feedback, I can tell you that the probability of someone performing as well as you did by chance is about 1 in 4000. (That's just based on the matches won/lost - it's pretty likely that your winning/losing throw percentage is even more impressive.)

As you mentioned, it's great for the sport that you put together that kind of performance in a study of how much skill there is in RPS. Once again, well played! 

It seems like 2007 is shaping up to be the year of superb performances!

[Jef Hallestone]

Wow, this is shaping up to be a very important study. Let's hope they don;t try to call you in for some retesting.

Nice work, you have done RPS proud.

[martinburley]

Out of interest, did you rely on any particular tactics or strategies across your matches, or did you go with a more flexible, intuitive style of play?

 

[The Saint]

For this test, being that it was so long in nature (best of 3 first to 10) I mainly relied on type casting each player before the match, and adapting to play where I guess wrong on their player type. In such a long match its easy to gain in play knowledge of a player. This was in stark contrast to my technique used in the IWC where I had my first 3 throws set before going in to each match, which allowed me to immediately concentrate on their play without wasting time and effort of thinking of which throw I should use. Although the aim of both techniques is the same, to figure out what type of player your opponent is in order to quickly adapt to their faults. Not an easy task for most. As the study truely shows.

There were a few last minute details that didn't get worked out due to my lack of input before heading up there (I'm a busy man). Such as they didnt record the actual throws of anyone. Which for their study isn't entirely necessary, but would've proved invaluble to me and my own knowledge of my gameplay. All though they could deduct a portion of my throws from the video taped segaments, which shows aproximately 1/4th of my play.

[R Cohrs]

Results like that make my defeat during MotBB more bearable    Good luck with the tests!

[martinburley]

Any more news from this study, Saint, or are you keeping their findings under wraps until after the Worlds?