Neuroscientist Study: MMORPG players identify avatars as themselves

Article by Severian MMORPGFOCUS.COM Staff Writer

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If you are at this site and reading this chances are you are a player of free MMOs or perhaps a monthly subscription paid MMORPG. You have probably spent time acquiring vanity items.


Come on now! Admit it. We all have. The game makers would not produce so many vanity items that have no statistical or battle performance value if players did not want them.


By their very abundance vanity items show their importance to players. Perhaps you have been one of the players who paid $800.00US to purchase a spectral tiger vanity mount for World of Warcraft. Well chances are it wasn't you, reader, but the fact that they sell on online auction houses all the time for this huge amount of money also shows how important vanity items are to players.

At the very least you have gotten your hands on a special vanity pet to show off to your guild mates or perhaps a special outfit or piece of armor that shows your status?


According to a study from Dartmouth University's department of neuroscience, it is a very powerful human instinct, deeply rooted in the chemical processes of the human brain causing this behavior. Many knew this to be true, hence the saying "keeping up with the Joneses." What is new is measuring the impact the chemicals have in how we relate to each other in non-real virtual spaces.


A team led by researcher and specialist Kristina Caudle found the results by analyzing World of Warcraft players. Fifteen MMORPG gamers, 14 men and 1 woman, who each played on their own an average of 23 hours per week, which is itself an amazing statistic, were hooked up to MRIs and repeatedly scanned while playing.


While playing the people were asked to rate how well adjectives described themselves. Words used were too many to list here, but some examples are: innocent, competent, jealous, and intelligent.


The results were very fascinating and perhaps not surprising to the seasoned MMORPG veteran. Dr. Caudle discovered that the brain area that lit up when volunteers thought about about themselves were the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex, each of which is known to strongly associate with self-reflection and judgment.


The most interesting finding however is that there was "no difference" in the activity in these regions when people thought about their avatar. In other words: to the brain, chemically you might as well be your avatar.


She states, " It makes good sense to me if you’re thinking about things in a virtual world you might get [activation in] these areas."


A fellow neuroscientist in the published study agrees stating, "You have this control over your avatar such that you’ve created this better version of yourself. I wonder whether these neural processes support reasoning about our better selves in some kind of wishful thinking sense."


Think about this next time you log in and preen in front of other players in your shiny new armor or show off that special pet or mount!


Read the full study: http://www.newscientist.com/article/...rtual-you.html


Discuss it with your friends in our special futurist section of the forums: http://www.mmorpgfocus.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=70