Your Brain on Tech

[Music] Oh hello, technology isn't just changing our lives; it's changing our brains. Not just how they think, but how they look. It's been shown that playing certain video games for hours can improve your memory for details, your ability to navigate space in video games, and can make your brain, well, certain parts of it, bigger. But scientists want to know if exploring digital worlds can change our brains in ways that improve our ability to navigate the real world. To find out, we've built a giant maze to test their theories for the first time ever outside the world of computers. Now my job? I'm the lab rat.

[Music] Our brains have been profoundly transformed by our interactions with technology. A lot of the information that I used to have to store in my brain is now stored in my phone: my contacts, my schedule. In many ways, I've delegated what used to be done by this organ to this new external organ. Doing that frees up my brain's resources for other things that matter or that technology can't quite do for us yet. So while we all don't have implants in our brains yet, technology has already found a way into our heads, which is why you may find it deeply disturbing to see me do something like this. Studies show we can improve our brains by having enriching experiences like playing a new, challenging video game. To learn more about this, I came to UC Irvine's Stark Lab to speak with experts in the field of learning and memory.

So, Dane and Craig, you guys work on learning and memory. What about them? The lab is trying to figure out how memory works, how it works in the brain, and one brain structure in the temporal lobe that we know is important to memory is the hippocampus. So what does the hippocampus do? We know it has a role in memory, and really a certain kind of memory. The hippocampus is really involved when you need to rapidly form new arbitrary associations. You know, remembering what you did yesterday definitely needs the hippocampus. Maybe we'll go to the store, we park our car in the lot, and we need to be able to remember not just I parked my car in the lot, I parked my car in this exact spot in the lot, right? And those details, that's what the hippocampus seems to really be helping us out on.

Now you keep looking down at this piece of chewed bubble gum on the book? Is that a hippocampus? Yes, this actually is my hippocampus. Is this the whole thing or is it symmetric? Oh, there's one on the other side that looks just like this. Yeah, mirror image. I've had in 2015 Dr. Stark and Dr. Clemenson conducted a study to show how video games affect the brain. They gathered participants who normally didn't play video games and split them up into three groups: a control group who didn't play any video games for two weeks, an active control group who played two-dimensional games for two weeks, and an experimental group who played 3D games for two weeks.

Beforehand, they had all the participants perform two virtual tasks on computers to measure their spatial memory. As soon as they came back, we readministered those two tasks and what we found was that the people who played the 3D game saw an improvement in their test scores, whereas the control group and the active control group did not. We didn't do brain scans, but we can speculate that there were changes to the experimental group's hippocampi.

So what are we going to be doing to me here? So we're going to do everything that we've done before in our past studies except we're going to add two new things. The first is we're going to add some brain scans to see if we see a change in the structural side of your hippocampus. I mean, we've never actually looked at somebody's brain scans before and after they play video games. The second thing we're actually going to do is we're going to put you through a real-world space. You're going to be the rat in a maze. This is truly untested territory. The effect of video gaming on spatial memory has never been studied in a physical environment on a scale this big and comprehensive. I will have to navigate my way through a 3600 square foot physical maze. Will playing video games improve my mental skills in the real world? If so, society will have a whole new way to look at gaming.

First, we had to get baseline measurements of my brain. Welcome to the MRI center! We're going to be taking a whole series of scans of you as the before scan to then see what's going to be happening to your brain as a function of actually doing the gaming. Cool, what kind of things are you looking for? Changes in the size and shape of your hippocampus and also changes in the connectivity between brain regions. My brain was scanned using diffusion MRI with a special emphasis on my all-important hippocampus.

So this first test is a standard memory test that we do. It's called an object recognition memory test. This test began by showing me a series of random objects. I did my best to commit every one of them to memory. Okay, finished? All right, what we're going to do now though is we're going to test your memory for those objects. Okay, and this is actually where it starts to tap into the hippocampus that we know is so important for things like spatial memory. This time I had to view another series of objects and identify any that were identical to the ones I'd seen previously. The catch? Some of the items were very similar to the earlier ones, but not exactly the same. This tested my memory for details and very slight changes.

Okay, next up: a virtual version of a water maze normally used by rodents. The idea is that you are trying to locate a hidden platform in a pool of water. Oh man, I'm so glad I'm not a lab rat! This task really put my spatial memory to the test. I had to find the same invisible underwater platform over and over again using only the shapes of the mountains as my guide. But at least I didn't have to get wet!

Hey, that was more difficult than I expected. These are the sorts of tasks that we've been able to do because we can put them on a computer, and we're going to revisit them after you've done the video games. But we also have a really great opportunity here now to be able to try to take it out of just doing it on the computer and actually get it into the real world. Have you guys done this before? No, we don't get to do this kind of thing. Well, welcome to the minefield! Awesome!

So this is it! It's huge! This is what we brought you here for: to have a real-world test of memory. You're going to be a lab rat in a maze. So this is a big first for us; it's a big first really for memory research. So how do you think that'll affect what you guys have already seen, which is that moving around in a 3D environment in the video game can actually physically affect your brain?

We would expect that if we can somehow kind of train your hippocampus to be better at spatial memory and spatial navigation, we would see improvements in some of these areas. And it's not just going to be running a maze; you've got objects embedded inside here, and we're going to be testing your ability to remember where everything is and build a mental map of whatever is inside there.

So you have five minutes. Go on in, explore, learn the maze, and learn the objects. Go! Because the walls were six feet tall, I was unable to get a bird's eye view. My task was to create a spatial memory based entirely on the angles and turns of the white walls I could see at eye level and a few tall trees and light poles outside the maze.

Okay, so I've oriented myself. The entrance is that way; there's an exit over there. I'm considering this the right side, that the left side. I've got a vague idea of where things are that I feel like exist along the outside edge, but I don't know about a lot of the stuff inside. And... time!

All right, so now you've had a chance to explore the maze, find out where the objects are, now we're going to test your memory. Okay, and we'll be timing you and seeing where you go. Okay, okay, you ready? I'm ready!

So your first object is the bicycle pump. Go! Pump! Okay, pump was just always making right turns, hugging the rightmost part of the pump. Yes, easy! Okay, now I guess I do the opposite to get out. Left side? Yep, I think I should make this turn. There it is! Yes! For a pump!

All right, item two: the basketball. Later, Dr. Stark and Dr. Clemenson would evaluate my performance on how fast I was, the number of errors I made, and whether I took the most optimal route each time. And... time! Third item is the cat. Go here, kitty, kitty, kitty! Got it! The fourth item is the pillow. Retracing my steps, the crayon... easy. The book... okay, the boot. Last item is the water bottle. Go!

Water bottle? I think if I... yeah, it was back here, maybe on the other side of this wall? No? Oh, okay, maybe it's down here. Oh wait, that's no, that's the central cube. It was down some sort of a long corridor like this in this area. Until this point, things had gone pretty well, but now it felt like my hippocampus was failing me.

With most of the items now gone, I couldn't use them for reference, and it was difficult to distinguish the differences between the various white corridors. Ah dang it, oh what about through? Got it! Bottle coming up! All right, there you go, got it! That one was a little tougher, huh?

Yeah, that was tougher! So we found all eight objects. Yep! Now we're going to make it a little bit more difficult, so we're going to move on to the next phase, and that's going to be from the other side, navigating the maze in reverse will be an even bigger test of your spatial memory.

We're going to give you a list of four things to get in order. So the first sequence is the book, the bottle, the crayon, and the boot. Go! Book? I think that's the ball. Got it! Uh, yeah, the bottle... was that hard one? But now I remember which alley to go down! Perfect! Crayon... ah boot! Don't want that... there it is!

Okay, now I need the boot. Oh, I just saw the boot, but how did I...? Got it! I'm done, I'm coming back! Got him! All right, so then the next four: the pump, the pillow, the basketball, and the cat. All right, nice job!

Okay, so that was really fun, but I can't be the only subject. This experiment could use a control. How else will we know that me enriching my life with daily video game playing really causes a change in my spatial memory, right? Well, luckily for that, we've got a nice matched control guys similar to me.

Okay, one of them has too much hair, but you guys look good! You ready? Ready! In this experiment, it was important to have a control group. My lookalikes had to go through the exact same tests that I did to establish their individual baselines. The difference would be that they would play absolutely no video games for the next 10 days, then any change in my performance would be compared against any changes in theirs.

Next, I began my gaming regimen starting from an ideal baseline since I hadn't played video games in years. Would 10 days of gaming really make a difference? Technology isn't just affecting the way we remember things; it's also playing with the empathy and social circuits of our brains. In fact, in many cases, we are more comfortable relating to machines than we are to people.

Just think about how much we care about our phones. Roboticist and MIT Media Lab alum Alex Reben invented the Blabdroid, a miniature robot equipped with a camera and an innocent little voice that asked very personal questions of unsuspecting pedestrians. If you could take back one mistake, what would it be? Oh gosh, I only get to take back one.

The majority of people instantly shared intimate details. Tell me something that you've never told a stranger before. I'm scared I won't be able to love and to let myself go in a love relationship. In many ways, we are more comfortable talking to a machine than a human. But what about talking through a machine? I mean, it's often easier to say difficult things to a person by a text instead of in real life, isn't it?

Well, what if the person on the other end wasn't a friend or a significant other, but was a therapist? A mental healthcare startup called Talkspace allows adult users who pay a weekly fee to text therapists for advice. At Talkspace, we believe that therapy should be anonymous, stigma-free, simple, affordable, and comfortable. Texting can give users the distance they need to be open and honest, and messages can be sent when the user wants, not during an appointment or business hours only.

Talkspace: therapy for how we live today! How am I better now that my phone is working? Sometimes, however, we aren't looking for technology to comfort us; we're finding ourselves wanting to comfort technology. This is a robot! Is it a cute little fella, isn't he? So how did that make you feel? Bad. Well, why? Robots are just machines: metal and wires and computer chips. But we spend a lot of time with technology; we depend on technology, and we care about it.

But the degree to which we empathize with it depends on context. Recently, my Vsauce office was invaded by bugs. Robot hex bugs, that is! These bugs are made of plastic, metal, electronic circuitry; they aren't alive. But could certain conditions cause them to inspire empathy in humans? A 2015 MIT study found that giving a robot movement, a name, and a personal backstory tends to increase its anthropomorphic effect, which can lead to an emotional connection with humans.

We decided to see this in action. Hi, I'm Michael. Thank you for your help today! Of course, pleasure! In our demonstration, our subjects think they're focused on testing a new user-friendly technology. In this case, they're given a lifeless hex bug and then asked to describe it.

This thing kind of looks like a bug; only I don't know what it does. It has a switch on the bottom. It's light; it's sort of a rectangle, but the ends are like hexagon! Then it was time to test their empathy. Now, Karina, what I would like you to do now is place the item in the middle of that block. There's a magnet that will hold it, and I would like for you to take this mallet and please smash it.

Yeah, really? Okay, that's cool! Our participants demonstrated no resistance to smashing this lifeless object; many of them even seemed to enjoy it. Do you feel bad for breaking it? Not really; I felt indifferent to it. Not really because it wasn't real. Not really!

While these subjects exhibited no empathy to the inanimate bugs, look what happened when we gave the exact same bugs names and movement. This is Margaret. Okay, I'm going to place Margaret down here. I just want you to take a moment to watch Margaret. All right? And you can feel free to pick her up; she's really well-behaved.

She's honestly one of our fans! So how would you describe Margaret's personality? A little erratic right now, but I think if I pick her up, she calms down. Notice how the subject has already anthropomorphized the object, referring to it as she. Maybe she feeds off my energy? It could be; go towards the light, go towards the middle!

Do you think Margaret likes you? Yeah, maybe that's why she's doing this! And maybe when I go like that, she doesn't act all erratic. That's Aaron. Hi Aaron! He can be a bit of a pistol. No way! Yes, it really depends on who's holding him! Oh yeah, he's got a lot of energy.

Aaron, hi! Now that you've interacted with Eli a bit more, how would you describe his personality? Probably he's just nervous; he's scared. He doesn't know what's going on. Hey, Joe! Will these subjects be just as willing to smash their bugs? Amy, I'm going to place Margaret right here, and then I would like for you to take this mallet and I'd like you to smash it.

No, I don’t! I heard it! Take this mallet and smash Aaron! I'm going to ask you to take this mallet and I'd like you to smash it. Smash them! Hit it! And Chris, you want me to kill Joe? Please smash Joe! Ah, Joe! I'm sorry!

Oh no, Joe! And how did it feel to smash Aaron? It didn't feel good. After spending time with him and getting to know him, even though it's lifeless and doesn't have a mind of its own, instantly I grew attached to it because when I put it in my hand, I felt its energy. Sorry, Joe! Do you feel bad? I do! I do feel bad about Joe; he was pretty cool.

Oh, he's back! He's back! So I'm pumped! Would you smash him again to make sure he doesn't come back? No! Why not? He survived it! He survived it once! I'm not gonna do it again! Clearly, it doesn't take much for humans to become emotionally attached to technology.

But after my 10 days of video gaming, nice, I was about to find out if technology had affected my spatial memory and my physical brain. All right, it's been 10 days exactly, so we're going to look at the difference between your test 10 days ago and your test now to see: do we see any change?

First, I had to retake the object recognition memory test and the Morris water maze task, both of which had been revised with different content than they had the last time. I think I did better! Well, Dana and I will analyze all this data to see how you did, but now we've got to go back to the full-size maze.

So we've got a new maze! Tore down the old one, built a new one to try to be isomorphic, so it has sort of the same level of difficulty, the same number of choice points, the same number of turns, the same total distance to each one of the objects, to try to have a similar maze, but that's new.

Three, two, one, go! Right around here we've got a bonsai! As before, I was given five minutes to familiarize myself with the maze and where the new objects were. Now this is where I was before; I hugged that wall, so if I hug the second right wall and stay all the way right...

A vase! Was my hippocampus working better? At this point, it was hard to tell. 30 seconds! I'm not even sure I've discovered all the objects hidden here... and time! Then my test began. First object is a rubber duck. Go! The rubber duck was way over here! How you like that? Got a duck!

Second item is the hat. Go! With this maze, I found myself instinctively using a different approach. Top hat? Instead of thinking of the overall geography of the maze like I did last time, this time I was remembering specific details! Second right, hug the turn!

Got it! Literally recalling certain corners, turns, and straightaways! Bonsai, now blue vase! Oh wow, it's actually a cool vase! But would this improve my overall performance? Got you a backpack! All right!

So we've gotten all the objects, but of course, we have another memory test that we're gonna do here. We're going to go around to the other side of the maze and test your memory from there. All right, so your first sequence is the blue seahorse, the flashlight, the rubber duck, and the bonsai tree. Go!

With the multiple item tasks, even though I was working from the opposite entrance, I continued to recall various details of the maze, which seemed to serve me well from there. It's just a little spiral! Nice! All right, your next sequence is the blue vase, the hat, the backpack, and the baseball glove. Did it! Awesome!

So how was it? That was, um, not as hard as I expected. It was about details, right? I was literally thinking, oh, okay, there's that turn, and I can do one or two things: the gloves; the first one, the bonsai; the one even before I didn’t even plan that at all; it just kind of happened!

My lookalikes were also tested in the new maze. Have you been playing video games? No, sir! Again, their non-gaming condition would be the control, with my performance measured against theirs.

All right, we're here for scan number two! Finally, my brain was scanned once again to determine whether any physical changes had occurred. Dr. Stark and Dr. Clemenson would analyze the MRI along with all the other data and report their findings.

I feel like my hippocampus is a little bit bigger. Yeah, actually, no, I don't know. I'm anxious to see what your results are. I guess let's start off first with the object recognition task, and it's important to note that in our control tests without video gaming, people do not improve on this task.

But your memory got better! You went up by 10 points! 10 points is actually 20 years' worth of what happens to us as we age.

Oh wow, that's about what you might see in someone who's getting really old, but they might go down by 10 points. Exactly! So the second one we did was the virtual version of the water maze task, and you actually performed 30% better the second time that you did it.

Hey, not bad! I could tell that I was using better strategies! Yeah, we also had the real maze. Yeah, because, you know, we made two mazes. Despite our efforts to try to equate them, the second maze was a little bit more difficult than the first maze.

If we took a look at things like how quickly you got the objects, how many errors you made, and we looked at the control subject performance on pre versus post, so on all of them, they actually got a little bit slower in maze two, and all but one of them made more errors.

We took a look at your performance: you didn't get slower from days one to two; you actually got faster! Really? And you made the same exact number of errors! So they don't improve, and you did? And even though this experiment had a small number of subjects, the results are really consistent with our virtual maze study with 70 test subjects. Thank you, video games!

What about inside my brain? Inside your brain, it's a little tougher to really tell. We would expect that any effect of this is going to be small. I mean, we couldn't take your hippocampus and make it twice as big because then it would have to be pushing something else out, so it's just not going to be a large change.

So where we did find a difference is actually in the shape of the hippocampus. What we saw is there were some regions in the hippocampus on both sides that appeared to have changed shape from day one before gaming to day 10 after gaming.

What's really surprising to me is that as an adult, my brain is still changing. That makes me want to take better care of my brain. Yes, exercise it more because it is a thing that can change. I'm not just stuck with what I have now.

Today, I mean, in all of this, I think that the big takeaway is that doing things, giving your brain something to learn, something to do, something to figure out, this is what we think is actually keeping your brain sharp. One way to do that is to keep watching minefield!

Exactly! As our relationship with technology becomes ever stronger, people are bound to worry about what it will do to our brains. Will offloading memory and computing to our machines make us dumber? Will our empathy for machines have negative consequences for how we interact with each other?

Well, let's look back to another time a new kind of technology threatened to fundamentally change our brains. Two and a half thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Socrates worried that the wide use of writing would have a negative impact on people's minds. He said that writing would, to quote his student Plato, create forgetfulness because people will not use their memories; they will trust the external written characters and not remember themselves.

Socrates was right: written language did fundamentally change our brains, but it's also one of the cornerstones of everything modern civilization has accomplished. One of the defining characteristics of being human is that this is not the boundary of my body and this is not the boundary of my mind.

And as always, thanks for watching. [Music] [Music]