Rachel Helps

Abrupt change in gamer demographics due to survey wording.

Each year, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) puts out the results of its survey of gamers. In last year and previous years, the surveys showed that a fair amount of gamers were middle-aged, a trend that gave the impression that the gaming market was becoming broader. But this year’s surve

Preservationists lament the loss of old arcade displays.

Cathode ray tube monitors (CRTs) are no longer being manufactured. Good riddance to those oversized monsters, right? Well, since CRTs have less lag than LCDs, retro gaming may never be the same.  Why would anyone want to put up with the size and weight of a CRT these days? One reason is the refresh

How to forget all the times you’ve died.

A new research study looks at the possibility of deliberately forgetting a story from one’s past. Researchers had participants remember a short instance inspired by a keyword, pair another word with it, and then repeat this procedure for 23 more word pairs (read word, remember something associated w

There’s a way to get around computers cheating with quantum data.

Interactive proofs are when humans or some theoretical questioner ask a computer questions, and they can’t trust the computer to really understand what they’re getting at. Asking multiple computers different questions makes this style of proofing more efficient. But because quantum physics is weird,

Do we have a subconscious understanding of abstraction?

Does it really matter which way you hang a Kandinsky? According to a study by George Mather at the University of Sussex, the answer is yes: Experiment 1 asked whether naïve observers can appreciate the correct orientation (as defined by the artist) of 40 modern artworks, some of which are entirely a