Hello again, Parents and Gamers!
As I'm sure we all saw it coming,
little to nothing has happened in the video game industry over the
course of this Sunday. However, rather than going our regular route of
simply leaving you with a game from Kongregate, we decided instead to do
a little write-up. One of the most common questions that we receive
whenever we cover scientific research about video games is concerning
correlation and causation. More specifically, we are often asked why we
implicitly specify if results are "correlative". Allow us to explain.
--------------------------------------------------
Fun with Graphs! Thanks to GraphJam.com
When referencing scientific
research, whether it be about video games, movies, music, medicine,
psychology, or any other field, the two of the most common words you
will hear when results are reported are "correlation" and "causation";
but what do they mean?
Sadly, a fair number of people take
these words as meaning the exact same thing. They do not. In fact,
assuming that correlation and causation are the same can lead to such
incredible scientific error that mixing these two up in, say, medicinal
research, could have dire results. Allow me to explain.
Correlation is best defined as a "mutual relationship between two or more things". In
other words, if we are talking about scientific research, there will be
an obvious connection between two actions or reactions. To give you an
interesting example, consider this fictional piece of research: over the
past 30 years, the length of the average lady's skirt has gotten
shorter and shorter. Coincidentally, the average number of home-runs hit
by the New York Yankees has progressively gotten higher and higher. Now
just hold onto that one for a second.
Now, let's consider Causation. The simplest way to describe causation is "the relationship of cause and effect".
Can't get much more simple than that. In scientific research, that
would mean that one thing that is happening is clearly leading to
another thing happening; an action leading to a reaction. To provide the
same example, allow us to consider the New York Yankees again: over the
last 30 years, the team has progressively adopted more home-run hitters
into the ranks as well as a number of coaches that have really made a
focus on working on the team's batting average, in turn the Yankees have
progressively gotten more and more home-runs.
Both of these examples are
technically relationships, therefore they are correlations, however only
one is a cause and effect relationship.
This now brings us full circle. In
this fictional example, we have seen two linked trends. On the one hand,
we have correlation stating the the length of women's skirts and the
number of home-runs hit by the New York Yankees over the last 30 years;
on the other hand, we also have a correlation between the number of
home-run hitters and coaches that have been hired on followed by the
number of home runs hit. Common sense tells us that the increase in
overall talent has led to more home-runs, nonetheless the data is still
there suggesting the short-skirt relationship.
Now you ask, what does this have to do with video games?
You may be interested to know that,
despite the multitude of research and reports that are published or
talked about in the media, science still has not determined what effect
video games may have on players. There have been dozens of studies that
have been posted on both sides "showing" that video games are both bad
and good for you. How can this be?
Again, this is a matter of
correlation versus causation. For all of the claims that researchers
have made about video games, very few have ever been able to prove
causation. This means that the video-game research has found trends and
relationships between certain factors, let's say violence in video games
and tendency towards violence in real life, however they have been
unable to prove that one thing is causing the other. Is it the violence
in the game that is causing it, or is it possibly a violent family
history? Is the individual turning to the violent game BECAUSE of a
tendency towards violence already? Despite all the speculation, these
factors have yet to prove cause and effect.
Before you ask: No, I'm not trying
to make a statement concerning violent video games and violent
tendencies; I just want to use an example that most people will be able
relate to concerning video game science.
So, from now on, whenever you hear
reports of scientific research "proving" something, whether it be video
games, psychology, whatever: look into it! The research can most
certainly show a link between the factors considered, i.e. a
correlation, but does it prove causation? Most journalistic reports,
whether on the TV or Internet, will always reference where the research
is being published, thereby allowing you to find out for yourself. If
you're interested in the research, take a quick look and you can figure
out whether the researchers proved cause-and-effect or if there is
simply a link!
Referring Articles:
--------------------------------------------------
Hopefully this has been helpful for
anyone interested in research. We would like to thank you for
joining us again and encourage you to stop by tomorrow for a new
article of The News. As always, if you have any questions,
simply shoot it to us in an e-mail at the address provided or
just leave it in the comment section below. We will get back to
you as quick as we can. Thanks again and we hope and have a wonderful day.
No comments:
Post a Comment