What is the Tetris Syndrome in Psychology?
The Tetris syndrome, also known as the Tetris effect, is a psychological phenomenon where people devote so much time and attention to an activity, in this case, the popular video game Tetris, that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. This phenomenon occurs when the brain becomes so accustomed to the repetitive patterns and problem-solving aspects of the game that it starts to apply these patterns to real-life situations, often unconsciously, and can have both positive and negative effects on individuals, including those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dementia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Understanding the Tetris Syndrome
The Tetris syndrome is a fascinating topic in psychology, and understanding its effects on the brain and behavior can provide valuable insights into the human mind.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: What is the Tetris Effect in Psychology?
The Tetris effect occurs when people devote so much time and attention to an activity that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams, taking its name from the video game Tetris.
Q2: What is an Example of Tetris Syndrome?
People who have played Tetris for a prolonged amount of time can find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street.
Q3: What is the Tetris Effect Psychology Today?
Daily gratitude practice leads to the “Tetris effect,” creating brain patterns leading to automatic positive thinking, and the brain is like a rambunctious toddler, needing consistency and follow-through for any positive behavioral changes to be made.
Q4: How Do You Stop Tetris Syndrome?
It likely occurs less these days because displays have changed a lot, and so have the graphics they use for the game, and one way to avoid having the Tetris effect happen when falling asleep is to not play Tetris or do anything repetitive in the time before bed.
Q5: What Causes Tetris Syndrome?
The Tetris effect occurs when people devote so much time and attention to an activity that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams, taking its name from the video game Tetris.
Q6: Does Tetris Syndrome Go Away?
Within a few days of putting down the game, you’ll notice that the Tetris dreams go away and that you stop seeing everything as an opportunity for Tetris, and the more you play the game, the more your brain will be focused on “playing the game” even after you have logged off or stepped away from your gaming device.
Q7: Is Tetris Good or Bad for Your Brain?
A study in 2017 by researchers at Oxford University and the Karolinska Institutet showed that Tetris had the potential to provide relief for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), if they played the game after an incident while recalling a stressful memory.
Q8: How Does Tetris Affect Trauma?
Current research shows that playing Tetris after a traumatic event may reduce incidences of intrusive memories, and more research is needed to fully understand the impact of playing the game on PTSD development.
Q9: What is the Negative Tetris Effect?
The Tetris Effect—when our brains get stuck in a pattern that focuses on stress, negativity, and failure, we set ourselves up to fail, and this principle teaches us how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see—and seize—opportunity wherever we look.
Q10: Does Tetris Actually Help with PTSD?
This is the conclusion reached by a team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum together with a researcher from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden following a study of 20 inpatients with PTSD, and following an intervention involving playing Tetris, the number of flashbacks for the stressful events decreased.
Q11: Does Tetris Help with Dementia?
People with dementia can reap the memory and concentration benefits of playing games, and trying easier puzzle-based options like Tetris can provide feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Q12: Is Tetris Good for PTSD?
Results showed that the researchers’ hypothesis was right: those who had played Tetris had fewer intrusive memories of the trauma in total over the week immediately following the accident than the controls, and the intrusive memories diminished more quickly.
Q13: What is the Tetris Effect Positivity?
When we seek and focus on the positive, we are engaged in a Positive Tetris Effect, resulting in increased happiness, gratitude, and optimism, and practicing gratitude is a great way to train your brain to look for the positives.
Q14: What Part of the Brain is Tetris?
Compared to girls who did not play Tetris, girls who played Tetris for three months had significantly thicker cerebral cortex in area 6 (in the parietal lobe) and areas 22/38 (in the temporal lobe) on the left side of their brains.
Q15: How Does Tetris Effect the Brain?
You may have experienced the Tetris Effect yourself if you’ve ever seen tetrominoes when you’re trying to bag your groceries, and in professional studies, the psychologist Richard Haier found that regularly playing Tetris resulted in an increased thickness of the cerebral cortex.