Everyone has been to an arcade before, or at least has heard about it. Flashing lights, loud noises, popcorn, slushes, and who can forget the games. Usually I like to partake in the driving games or the ones that require a great deal of attention to stop a fast flashing light to stop at the smallest designated spot, but from my last trip to Dave and Buster’s I remember one game; the Whac-a-Mole. It’s not normally my game of choice but my son really wanted to play it. Since it was the harder adult version and he is still pretty small I ended up playing it for him with him just holding the mallet. Just like the other games it was flashing lights galore. My son, who thought he was the actual one playing, directed me to where the moles were so I could hit them. I tried my best to score high so he could have more tickets but like I said it was an adult game with a child directing me.
I didn’t notice until the topic was mentioned in class the trick that was used in the Whac-a-Mole game. They used cues to direct the player’s attention; the holes had lights around them and other places as well on the game. Before starting the game it flashed lights but as soon as I started playing the lights increased, especially to where the moles were popping out of. I know now that the reason why my son had directed me to hit in null places was because if the invalid cues in the game. Cues are defined as a stimulus that might indicate where the leading stimulus may appear. Cues can be valid; correctly directing you to the following stimulus, invalid; wrongly directing you to a following stimulus, or neutral which leads to neither a right nor wrong stimulus. My reaction time was slower due to the invalid cues because I believed that the lights indicated an incoming mole, than if we had not focused on the lights. Whac-a-Mole is filled with invalid and natural cues was designed to direct your attention to a lit hole, giving off the impression that a mole would pop out but really the mole would come out of an unlit hole. Thus making you miss the mole and lose points, all because of theses invalid cues. So the next time you go to an arcade, don’t let the lights get you, direct your attention on the actual game.
This may be a little off topic… but places like arcades and casinos, have a lot of things going on as distractors. Like alcohol, loud noises and bright lights all make it hard to put our attention on only the games. Not only that, but also the colors and design of the rooms. They usually have gold colored statues, decorations, walls…etc. that makes people feel optimistic and joyful. Most of their things are also in circular shapes, especially in casinos. The round chairs, tables, chips, lights, and carpet patterns are all designed to make people have positive emotions. Most of the time, they do not put clocks in the rooms either to distract people from the lost of time.
These are all tricks they play on us to get our attention distracted from the game and from time, and also make us have positive emotions to want to sit and play for a long time.
-Clock
This is a really interesting example of connecting concepts from class to our everyday lives. Looking back on games I used to play in arcades, my favorite was very similar to Whac-a-Mole. It was a long row of alligators sliding in and out of holes and players used the same type of mallet to smash them each time one popped out. If I remember correctly, the tunnels they came out of used to light up just like the game you are describing. This was always deceiving because the lights often did not correspond to which alligator was coming out, as a way to trick the player. I like that you have tied this concept to a game that is so easy to visualize, it’s a good way to strengthen what we have learned in class.