Why They Work
Priming
Our games are based on the psychological process called priming. The basic idea is that you give a person a stimulus before they perform a task and that stimulus can change how they behave. The stimulus works by a process called spreading activation in the brain. Whenever you hear or see something (or touch, taste, or smell something), your brain tries to match it to what it already knows. This happens automatically and without your conscious control.
For example, if we talk about popcorn or show you a picture of popcorn, your brain automatically matches popcorn to what you know about popcorn. Most people associate popcorn with going to the movies, so this means your brain will activate the concept of movies. If you commonly take a date to the movies, popcorn might also activate the concept of dating or bring to mind your loved one.
The key point is that this happens automatically and subconsciously. You're not even aware of it and you can't control it.
The concepts that priming activates in your brain influence your behavior. So if we prime you with popcorn and ask you to name some famous celebrities, you'll be more likely to name movie stars than rock stars, simply because the movie concept is active in your brain and music is not. We can also prime you with a "politeness" stimulus (or a "rudeness" stimulus) and you'll behave more politely (or more rudely). And you won't even realize it.
Priming to Improve Performance
The key question is how can we prime you to improve your performance. What stimulus improves thinking performance?
Research shows that performance is influenced by two major factors: ability and motivation. Our games won't improve your ability. That comes from study and practice (although our SAT.Booster game is designed to use words from the SAT vocabulary so playing it might improve your verbal ability).
Our games target motivation. Motivation is made up of two factors: goal importance and expectation of success. For most people, performing well on tests or making good business decisions are important goals, so that part of motivation is high. The problem is how successful you think you're going to be. Tests (especially high stakes tests like the SAT) or important business decisions are often stressful, and your subconscious knows this. If you have any doubts or worries about succeeding, your motivation is not complete; there is room to improve it.
Our games increase your subconscious expectation of success. We prime your subconscious with the concept of acheivement. As your subconscious activates concepts related to achievement, your subconscious worries disappear which increases your motivation and in turn improves your performance. Our games are often funny, which also helps relieve stress.
How Our Games Prime You to Succeed
Many different types of priming have been used in research. The goal of each type is to activate the desired prime in your brain. The most common types of priming are listening to stories that include the prime, taking a test designed to make you think about the prime, or solving a problem using the prime.
We wanted something fun and easy to do, so we developed a game. Our game is based on the scrambled sentence test that is widely used to deliver priming in psychology research.
Each round in our game presents you with a set of six words. You build a humorous headline for a news story or a blog posting using five of the six words. The words are carefully selected to prime you to succeed. The games prime the concept of acheivement, as well as secondary primes unique to each game. For example, our SAT.Booster game has a secondary prime that is designed to improve performance for the SAT test. Our Idea.Booster game has a secondary prime designed to improve creativity.
Proving They Work
We're professors, so we don't sell a game until we're convinced it works.
Our SAT.Booster game was tested in a blind laboratory study using 61 students; 35 randomly selected students played the SAT.Booster game while 26 randomly selected students played a placebo game that worked exactly the same way, but contained no priming stimulus. After playing the game, the students took a short version of the SAT test. The students who had played the SAT.Booster game scored significantly higher on both the verbal and math sections by a combined total of about 50 points. (And in case you're wondering, we controlled for students' ability and gender). You can read the research study here. This study will be presented at the 2012 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (the longest running academic conference on information technology) and published in the the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Digital Library .
Our Idea.Booster game was subjected to similar testing and was also found to significantly improve the number of ideas generated and their quality and creativity. The difference was large; people using Idea.Booster produced 30% more ideas than those using the placebo game. You can read the research study here. This study will be presented at the 2012 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (the longest running academic conference on information technology) and published in the the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Digital Library .
Our other games are subjected to similar testing, although we haven't produced research reports about them. One game we're working on failed our tests (it did not significantly improve performance), so we have not released it. We're redesigning its priming stimulus and if our tests of the new stimulus show it works, we'll release it; but until we're sure, we're not selling it.
Priming
Our games are based on the psychological process called priming. The basic idea is that you give a person a stimulus before they perform a task and that stimulus can change how they behave. The stimulus works by a process called spreading activation in the brain. Whenever you hear or see something (or touch, taste, or smell something), your brain tries to match it to what it already knows. This happens automatically and without your conscious control.
For example, if we talk about popcorn or show you a picture of popcorn, your brain automatically matches popcorn to what you know about popcorn. Most people associate popcorn with going to the movies, so this means your brain will activate the concept of movies. If you commonly take a date to the movies, popcorn might also activate the concept of dating or bring to mind your loved one.
The key point is that this happens automatically and subconsciously. You're not even aware of it and you can't control it.
The concepts that priming activates in your brain influence your behavior. So if we prime you with popcorn and ask you to name some famous celebrities, you'll be more likely to name movie stars than rock stars, simply because the movie concept is active in your brain and music is not. We can also prime you with a "politeness" stimulus (or a "rudeness" stimulus) and you'll behave more politely (or more rudely). And you won't even realize it.
Priming to Improve Performance
The key question is how can we prime you to improve your performance. What stimulus improves thinking performance?
Research shows that performance is influenced by two major factors: ability and motivation. Our games won't improve your ability. That comes from study and practice (although our SAT.Booster game is designed to use words from the SAT vocabulary so playing it might improve your verbal ability).
Our games target motivation. Motivation is made up of two factors: goal importance and expectation of success. For most people, performing well on tests or making good business decisions are important goals, so that part of motivation is high. The problem is how successful you think you're going to be. Tests (especially high stakes tests like the SAT) or important business decisions are often stressful, and your subconscious knows this. If you have any doubts or worries about succeeding, your motivation is not complete; there is room to improve it.
Our games increase your subconscious expectation of success. We prime your subconscious with the concept of acheivement. As your subconscious activates concepts related to achievement, your subconscious worries disappear which increases your motivation and in turn improves your performance. Our games are often funny, which also helps relieve stress.
How Our Games Prime You to Succeed
Many different types of priming have been used in research. The goal of each type is to activate the desired prime in your brain. The most common types of priming are listening to stories that include the prime, taking a test designed to make you think about the prime, or solving a problem using the prime.
We wanted something fun and easy to do, so we developed a game. Our game is based on the scrambled sentence test that is widely used to deliver priming in psychology research.
Each round in our game presents you with a set of six words. You build a humorous headline for a news story or a blog posting using five of the six words. The words are carefully selected to prime you to succeed. The games prime the concept of acheivement, as well as secondary primes unique to each game. For example, our SAT.Booster game has a secondary prime that is designed to improve performance for the SAT test. Our Idea.Booster game has a secondary prime designed to improve creativity.
Proving They Work
We're professors, so we don't sell a game until we're convinced it works.
Our SAT.Booster game was tested in a blind laboratory study using 61 students; 35 randomly selected students played the SAT.Booster game while 26 randomly selected students played a placebo game that worked exactly the same way, but contained no priming stimulus. After playing the game, the students took a short version of the SAT test. The students who had played the SAT.Booster game scored significantly higher on both the verbal and math sections by a combined total of about 50 points. (And in case you're wondering, we controlled for students' ability and gender). You can read the research study here. This study will be presented at the 2012 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (the longest running academic conference on information technology) and published in the the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Digital Library .
Our Idea.Booster game was subjected to similar testing and was also found to significantly improve the number of ideas generated and their quality and creativity. The difference was large; people using Idea.Booster produced 30% more ideas than those using the placebo game. You can read the research study here. This study will be presented at the 2012 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (the longest running academic conference on information technology) and published in the the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Digital Library .
Our other games are subjected to similar testing, although we haven't produced research reports about them. One game we're working on failed our tests (it did not significantly improve performance), so we have not released it. We're redesigning its priming stimulus and if our tests of the new stimulus show it works, we'll release it; but until we're sure, we're not selling it.