mattnewport comments on Do you have High-Functioning Asperger's Syndrome? - Less Wrong

19 [deleted] 10 May 2010 11:55PM

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Comment author: mattnewport 11 May 2010 03:49:23AM 2 points [-]

So-called 'twitch' video games are best for improving hand eye co-ordination. First person shooters are probably best for improving spatial awareness and also generally focus on twitch gameplay. A realistic driving game may help improve driving skills specifically. There are a number of attempts to use driving simulators to improve awareness in new drivers but I'm not sure what research exists to support their effectiveness.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 11 May 2010 06:19:27AM *  5 points [-]

For a different perspective, Psychonauts, Cave Story, and Portal are all absolutely charming twitchy games I'd recommend to anyone. Portal in particular will improve spatial awareness even in ways that aren't actually useful.

Comment author: mattnewport 11 May 2010 06:30:02AM *  5 points [-]

Portal is indeed a great game and since it features a rather unfriendly (or at least homicidally eccentric) AI is quite appropriate for Less Wrong readers. It's probably a little less stressful for a novice FPS player than your typical modern FPS as well while still being a spatial and coordination challenge.

Comment author: pjeby 11 May 2010 09:28:13PM 4 points [-]

Portal is indeed a great game and since it features a rather unfriendly (or at least homicidally eccentric) AI

Apart from the unrealistic passive-aggressive personality, GlaDOS seems like sort of a reasonable example of the problem of giving an AI overly-narrow goals like "conduct research". ;-)

Comment author: mattnewport 11 May 2010 09:31:41PM *  8 points [-]

I don't know about unrealistic but I found GLaDOS a bizarrely sympathetic character considering she has no qualms about killing you. And she does offer cake.

Wolpaw further describes the idea of using cake as the reward came about as "at the beginning of the Portal development process, we sat down as a group to decide what philosopher or school of philosophy our game would be based on. That was followed by about 15 minutes of silence and then someone mentioned that a lot of people like cake."

ETA: For the non spoiler-averse the song from the end credits of Portal gives a pretty good insight into GLaDOS' personality.

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