Wanna Rock At Guitar Hero? Sleep

AveryZoe

June 9, 2010

In a study of the relationship between sleep and complex motor learning, scientists at Trent University in Ontario, Canada have unlinked the key to performing well at Guitar Hero: get a good night's sleep. Many studies have been done to study the link between sleep and learning, but in this case the scientists used the Guitar Hero video game to test how well the subjects performed both with and without sleep. The goal was to find whether getting sleep in between would significantly change performance.

GHlogo (16K) Fifteen college students--average age 20--performed the test. Each participant was asked to play one of two songs until they achieved at least 50% accuracy. Both songs were from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. In the wake test, study participants were tested first at 9 a.m., and then at 9 p.m. were asked to replay the same song twice in order to show how they performed after 12 hours of wakefulness. In the second test, which occurred one week later, the sleep test was held. Study participants again performed a song until they reached 50% accuracy, but this time it was at 9 p.m. Twelve hours later, after getting some sleep, participants played the song twice at 9 a.m.

At the first play-throughs, the study participants averaged about 61% mastery of the song. After 12 hours of wakefulness, their average improved to 63%. After 12 hours of sleep, though, that mastery jumped to 68%. Not perfect by any means, but definitely a notable improvement. The research team believes this shows a significant correlation between sleep and performance.

Kevin Peters, lead investigator, presented the study at SLEEP 2010, which is an annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies L.L.C. Peters stated that he, along with lead author Caitlin Higginson, intends to continue using the Guitar Hero games to study how sleep relates to learning.

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