Cognitive Gamer

One constraint that everyone has is working memory capacity. Or in other words, how many things you can remember at any one point in time. While there are individual differences in this, another aspect turns out to be more important: … Continue reading →

I consider the popular board game Pandemic from a number of different angles. What makes it an interesting game, cognitively speaking? I touch on decision making, attention, cooperation, and also the Legacy and iPad versions. Game References Burgle Bros, Mechs … Continue reading →

Humans do not always make the most optimal decisions. We are limited by our cognitive resources. We usually make decisions, even in playing games, that are just “good enough.” The process of making a “good enough” decision is known as … Continue reading →

For about as long as there have been computers, there have been computer programs that play games. This episode considers some of the history of game playing computers, and how that has shed light on the nature of human intelligence. … Continue reading →

You need to have focused attention while playing games. If you don’t, you might miss a critical move in a board game, or totally miss that other player about to blast you in Call of Duty. This episode considers how … Continue reading →

Visual memory has a different character than verbal memory. This episode examines the nature of our visual memory, and how it is used in such games as Tetris, Carcassonne, and any game that has a map that your character must … Continue reading →

How verbal items are stored in long term affect how they are retrieved. This in turn affects how we play a fair number of games, as they require retrieval of items from long term memory. In particular, I consider such … Continue reading →