Daniel Terdiman (who seems to be the alpha games beat reporter for Wired these days) has a little article about how the real world doesn't use a joystick. The intro bit talks about a person who had been playing a little (too much?) Katamari Damacy (see Tim's review) and, for a split second, tried to pick up a real mailbox with a real car.
Over at Broken Toys, Scott is understandably a bit skeptical regarding whether this behavior can be generalized (assuming the term "complete crack monkeys" denotes skepticism). But there is a shred of truth to the existence of a post-video game cognitive haze, is there not? Other anecdotal evidence provided in the story:
- "When I played [The Sims] a lot," said Laura Martin, a devotee of the game, "I remember thinking, 'What percent of my bladder is full?' to decide if it was time to head to the bathroom."
- "I've been using the computer for so long, and command-Z works for undo in all the software programs," Hoffman said. "So whenever I find something in my life that I want to undo, I reach for the command-Z keys and I find it weird that it doesn't work."
What are your experiences? Any ideas about whether these effects are amplified or muted in MMOGs? Any good paper references from the cog psych folks?
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