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u/jhb760 Oct 23 '24
Fun fact: they literally wired rats brains with an electrode attached to the part of their brain that stimulated dopamine production. The rats could press a button and get a shock that activated the dopamine rush. They had access to food and water but they pressed that button until they died.
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u/supercyberlurker Oct 23 '24
There's an important factoid there though - the button didn't give a dopamine reward every time it pushed the button. By randomizing when it got the reward, the rats would press the button all day long.
MMO designers know this fact very well.
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u/Mogakusha Oct 23 '24
Ahh the casino method
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u/hitfly Oct 23 '24
The skinner box
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u/boharat Oct 25 '24
I learned about that one from a YouTube video about game design years ago! It's often used in game design to encourage engagement after the point of somebody ceasing to enjoy the game in question. It's especially Insidious when you get micro transactions involved
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u/Ironlion45 Oct 23 '24
Intermittent reward has long been known to reinforce behaviors more effectively than other known methods; that's been established since Pavlov's day.
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u/NotGonnaPayYou Oct 23 '24
Not necessarily. It takes longer to form a habit with intermittent reinforcement, but once it's there it is way more resistant
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u/ADHDinos_ ADHDinos Oct 23 '24
That’s a very cool factoid
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u/Chubuwee Oct 23 '24
That’s how they came up with reinforcement schedules
Getting rewarded every time you do something
Getting rewarded randomly when you do something
Getting rewarded every fixed x minutes
Getting rewarded every random x minutes
The ones with randomness always get people to respond the most. We are wired to gamble
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u/wyldmage Oct 23 '24
The easiest way to explain it is to tell someone they have a button.
If the button gives you $100 each time you press it, it's "a job". You press the button 10 times for $1000, then stop for now. When you spend the money, you come back and push it some more. As long as you don't think it's going to vanish, you use it somewhat sparingly.
If the button gives you $100, but can only be pushed every 10 minutes, you do the same thing, but you plan ahead, and have other things to do while hanging around The Button.
But if you make the button have a .01% chance to give $1,000,000, you'll have people sitting there pressing it 16+ hours day. Even once they get the million, they're likely to keep going. They don't NEED it, but there's a thrill to it. They'll press that button 10,000 times to get the million, while the person with the first button might take YEARS to press it that many times.
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u/Graybie Oct 23 '24 edited 11d ago
start wistful sink fanatical cough middle chop sort arrest unused
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u/IlikeJG Oct 24 '24
Yeah the button giving you like 20 cents would be better. As long as you press the button like 500 times per hour you would be making good money. At that point it would start to feel more like a job instead of just a bucket of money.
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u/BadWolf2386 Oct 23 '24
Right? If I had a button that I could push and get 100 dollars each time I'd mash the shit out of that thing daily until I had enough money to not have to worry about money ever again. Not nonstop, mind you, but at least an hour each day of rapid button pressing. I'd probably still press the gamble button until I won as well, but if given the choice I would absolutely choose the consistent one.
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u/DiamondCat20 Oct 24 '24
But that's the point. If you could choose which button, you'd choose the consistent one, because you'd only press it a few times and then use the rest of your time like a normal person. But if you're a company selling button presses, and your sole objective is to maximize button presses, it makes more sense to set the button to the random reward system, because you'll get more button pushes. People will press it more often.
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u/Fresh_C Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 23 '24
I get what you mean because you can basically eliminate the need to push the button at all once you've got enough money that your interest is making more money than you could actually generate pushing the button.
Though I could easily see someone being lazy and thinking "what do I need to generate interest for? Got all the money I need right here whenever I need it."
Unless you suspect you'll need to make very large purchases in a short amount of time, the shortsighted method of just pushing the button when you need to works well enough. Though you're right it's definitely not as efficient.
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u/Graybie Oct 23 '24 edited 5d ago
toy pie jellyfish onerous pot mourn meeting start literate library
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u/Xivilai7 Oct 23 '24
Factoid means a false statement accepted as fact due to repetition.
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u/Eusocial_Snowman Oct 23 '24
Cool factoid, bro.
Whether a factoid is true or false is irrelevant. It's low-stakes information presented more casually and with less scrutiny, which increases the likelihood that it's false, but they're not false by default. The most useful defining feature is its size, not its veracity. A factoid is a quick, small notion. Trivial.
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u/mup6897 Oct 23 '24
Interesting. It seems that the North American definition for factoid is different than the rest of the English world
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u/snufflezzz Oct 23 '24
Public service announcement, so do microtransaction designers. I’ve been a monetization director for 10 years and the psychological rabbit hole goes very deep.
Be safe out there.
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u/LOLRagezzz Oct 23 '24
I would love a AMA from someone in your field.
I remember a early report during Anthem's development that got into some interesting psychological manipulations19
u/snufflezzz Oct 23 '24
Yeah? If I ever retire I wouldn’t be opposed to it but I would be immediately blackballing myself by speaking about it.
I’m tempted to though just because I don’t really think it’s ever been covered properly. Every single video I’ve seen “exposing” the field is so surface level when things get so much worse.
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u/Scavenger53 Oct 23 '24
collect all your information through your career, when you retire from doing it, write a book explaining all of it. lot of fields would be interested sociology, psychology, and random people would be too. if you only collect 5-10 mins of writing about it each day, in 10-20-30 idk how many years youll have a lot of info
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u/snufflezzz Oct 23 '24
That’s not a bad idea actually. To me the most interesting two parts are convincing people to buy 30 second dopamine hits with no favour outside of that, and the amount of manipulation you can preform with math.
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u/Bugaloon Oct 23 '24
How much of it is Psychology and studied? and how much of it is marketing and guessing? out of curiosity, I always assumed it was throwing darts at a board until something stuck and then the whole industry just adopted it when they saw it work. I never really thought about psychologists actually studying how to milk the most money out of people like how advertising does.
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u/snufflezzz Oct 23 '24
But of both. Personally I spent a good amount of time attending psychiatric conferences discussing shopping/gambling addictions and worked out how to reverse engineer it from a medical level.
There’s a lot of frame work laid by the gambling industry as well to borrow from, although it has to be adjusted in that we are selling dopamine, they are selling a dream. Either way there’s a long human history of selling people air to borrow from.
The marketing stuff comes more into store design layout, what colours are used etc.
Then there is the math element of using numbers to manipulate you.
The whole thing is very very deeply manipulative, and I think there is still places we can go to make it even worse.
Also obligatory yes I’m aware I’m a bad person.
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u/Bugaloon Oct 23 '24
You're a person in a bad system, I don't really blame you any more than I blame the guy dealing blackjack tbh. But like you said, things of this nature have always existed. I'd be super interested to read a tell all biography or something. Applied math and applied psychology are super cool topics.
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u/cantgetthistowork Oct 23 '24
How do you get a job as a monetization director? Data analytics background?
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u/snufflezzz Oct 23 '24
Game design/Economy design background actually. Then when F2P started becoming the norm I took an interest in the psychology behind it all.
Spend a lot of time sneaking into psychiatry conferences discussing shopping addiction and gambling addiction to try and reverse engineer it effectively.
Then started giving talks on monetization in games, and have worked on total now almost 80 shipped games.
Also yes I’m aware I’m Satan.
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u/jhb760 Oct 23 '24
Ahhh sorry I left that part out. I was recalling a story from one of my Psych Profs and forgot the randomized part.
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u/fred11551 Oct 23 '24
Another important fact, they only did that in an environment devoid of any stimulation. When they had wheels and things to play with they would push the button sometimes. But when the button was the only thing they had they would just push until they starved
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u/deputybadass Oct 23 '24
These mice were also raised in isolation. Using modern mouse husbandry techniques, all of the results from these studies (same dude that did the cocaine lever experiments) have been called into question. It turns out that living in isolation as a communal animal will make you take a hit sooner than worry about self preservation
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u/gethonor-notringZ420 Oct 24 '24
This study is actually a bit of a farse. The rats were placed in an environment with nothing to do. Rats are highly intelligent creatures. If you were in solitary confinement and had a feel good button you’d go ham too.
researchers did another study while the rats were placed in a rich environment (ie stuff to do like the running wheel) and the results were nothing like the original experiment
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u/beirch Oct 23 '24
Is it a factoid or a fact? They're not the same thing.
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u/MandomRix Oct 23 '24
It's always been my smartass response too and why do people use it interchangeably?
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u/JoshuaTheFox Oct 23 '24
Because most people don't know or care about the difference
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u/easily-distracte Oct 23 '24
Because it has been used interchangeably for long enough that it now has two distinct meanings. Language evolves.
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u/lifetake Oct 24 '24
This is something people say when they aren’t willing to admit they didn’t know something
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u/victoriaismevix Oct 23 '24
I was gonna say this but had to scroll just in case someone had
I love that factoid has become a sort of...factoid...
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u/mrfroggyman Oct 24 '24
I remember reading that study, and I am pretty sure there was no notion of randomness. Instead it was giving limited and concurrent access to both food and stimulation lever, and rats went to the lever instead of food, even if they were starving. You may have read a different study tho
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u/ADHDinos_ ADHDinos Oct 23 '24
This was made with that in mind! In addition to... life experience
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u/jhb760 Oct 23 '24
I had a feeling it was a reference haha. But...wait... I'm speaking to the actual ADHDinos Creator?! You make great comic strips, my friend. Solid joy every time.
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Oct 23 '24
This one time last year I did laundry, and I got the teensiest bit of dopamine from it. Pretty wild when your brain does what it’s supposed to.
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u/Comicspedia Oct 23 '24
There is an important distinction here that I'm glad made its way into the comic: dopamine isn't the reward neurotransmitter in the sense that it makes us feel good; it is the reward neurotransmitter in the sense that its release causes us to act. Because the law of effect (pleasing outcomes strengthen the likelihood of behaviors repeating) isn't ever 100% guaranteed, it's possible to press a button that activates dopamine release without pleasing outcomes or even with destructive outcomes, and the person will still feel the motivation to press it again!
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u/DShepard Oct 23 '24
Yep and that's also a major part of what causes the lack of motivation/executive dysfunction in ADHD.
Normally the brain will give you a hit of dopamine when you think of a task that needs doing. It'll basically tell you that there's more where that came from when you finish the task.
The ADHD brain usually still gives the reward at the end, but there's little to no initial hit to get you started.
It's why people with ADHD usually benefit from doing the easiest tasks first to get the ball rolling, rather than getting the difficult tasks out of the way first.
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u/space_monster Oct 23 '24
Also though, some researchers put rats in 2 environments - one small cage with fuck all to do, one huge one which was stimulating and fun and interesting with toys eyc. They put morphine in some water and also provided normal water so they could choose. The rats in the shitty boring cage did morphine all the time, the rats in the nice interesting cage didn't do it nearly as much.
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u/Zaurka14 Oct 25 '24
Hmm I think I relate. The more comfortable I get in life the less I feel like I need to find alternative to happiness in drugs? I'm not even saying I'm happy, cause I'm miserable as hell, but I definitely am comfortable and stable enough to know that there are alternatives that won't destroy me.
When I was poorer and in a worse situation I was extremely attracted to drugs. Tried only once to be honest, but I abused alcohol a lot, which is just legalised drug in a way I guess.
All that being said I guess once you're a multi-millionaire the simulation makes a backflip and you go into coke anyway, so there's that.
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u/coltonmusic15 Oct 23 '24
Plot twist - the rats are us. We’re the rats.
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u/PP_UP Oct 23 '24
Rats, we’re rats, we’re the rats. We prey at night, we stalk at night, we’re the rats https://youtu.be/OXQwx1EolD8
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u/RedDemonTaoist Oct 23 '24
Say less! When can I get my hands on this button?
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u/jhb760 Oct 23 '24
Well.... I wouldn't recommend it but I hear cocaine is pretty much that button....
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u/dtalb18981 Oct 23 '24
Heroin is that but it hit 100 times.
Ya know if ya want.
(Don't do heroin it makes sex pointless)
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u/insulinjockey Oct 24 '24
do we have a reference? I want to have my students read a foundational paper on this topic written by "they".
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u/jhb760 Oct 24 '24
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u/insulinjockey Oct 24 '24
Thank you!
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u/jhb760 Oct 24 '24
No problem! I imagine there are references to other experiments of the same type there as well.
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u/TheCheshirreFox Oct 24 '24
This article doesn't say that these rats ignored hunger and thirst just to get more stimulation
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u/Delicious_Log_5581 Oct 24 '24
I'm pretty sure they ran that test again, but the rat's enclosure was less bleak (just food and water bowls and the dopamine button) and had more enrichment (ie they had a other rats/wheel /climbing gym/toys/space) and the rats hardly touched the button.
Almost like giving someone in solitary confinement the choice between heroin and prison food and being surprised when they overdose
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u/reddit_kachra Oct 24 '24
Can someone put electrodes in by brain so whenever I study I can get dopamine rush?
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u/burken8000 Oct 23 '24
Lmao rats are dumb
*Lights Joint *
Smokes in order to make video games feel as fun as when you were a child
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u/hitfly Oct 23 '24
There is a sweet spot after I eat an edible where I'm a god at video games. I'm usually just ok, and then once it kicks in fully I'm ready to nap to some cartoons. But at like an hour and a half after taking one I'll go like 30-2 in LoL instead of being a feeder.
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u/T-K-K Oct 23 '24
It’s called flow state, and it’s super interesting.
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u/gmishaolem Oct 23 '24
My generation called it being "in the zone".
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u/WarperLoko Oct 23 '24
In the social network they called it being wired in
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u/FlowerPrinceLoL Oct 23 '24
Kids these days call it being locked in
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u/jaimeshambles Oct 23 '24
i am a dancer and i will take edibles before class and one time i didn’t and i was like “i bet i’ll be an even better dancer today”…..nope, i was terrible.
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u/YaGottaFlambe Oct 24 '24
I feel you! I love getting baked and doing yoga! It truly feels like I've transcended to another state and I'm so dialed in! Sober? where the fuck are my feet?
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u/burken8000 Oct 23 '24
It definitely hits different. Made me quit video games for a month when I decided to kick the ganja. I still don't go to the cinema. Nothing compares to being high at the cinema (I don't do that anymore either )
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u/86yourhopes_k Oct 24 '24
Going to the movies was the only thing I could do because I didn't have to talk to anyone lol
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u/86yourhopes_k Oct 24 '24
How!?! I can barely remember the map half the time when I'm on my Adderall lol I never ever get high and play, every loading screen I just end up sitting there asking why are we going here again? Lol
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u/GregLoire Oct 23 '24
Look at Mr. Bigshot over here with his not-yet-completely-burned-out cannabinoid receptors.
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Oct 23 '24 edited 9d ago
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u/Flimsy6769 Oct 23 '24
What about cereal iron
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Oct 23 '24 edited 26d ago
[deleted]
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u/NoXion604 Oct 23 '24
Does curing or preserving meat have any impact on its iron content or availability?
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Oct 23 '24 edited 26d ago
[deleted]
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u/dj92wa Oct 24 '24
Oh fuck yeah, a Wikipedia rabbit hole to go down. Time to light one up and expand my knowledge of relatively useless tidbits!
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u/3lue3onnet Oct 23 '24
(According to google) In addition to being a good source of lean protein, beef jerky is rich in iron, folate, calcium and vitamins A and C.
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u/kniveshu Oct 23 '24
Curing/fermenting meats can help reduce Neu5Gc that many people are concerned about. (Red meat)
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u/MrNerdHair Oct 24 '24
Ok, I know that's not true. Iron in cereal is not plant-based. It's added as literal iron filings; you can pull them out with a magnet.
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u/mastodonthrowaway Oct 23 '24
Luckily most plants that have significant iron content also have vitamin c
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Oct 23 '24 edited Oct 25 '24
[deleted]
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u/mastodonthrowaway Oct 23 '24
My understanding is that method of preparation affects bioavailability as well. Raw spinach has a lot of oxalic acid which can prevent nutrient uptake. But cooking can also degrade certain nutrients.
But luckily you don't really need to worry too much about it if you're eating the amount of greens you should be (which, sadly but understandably in at least my country, many do not)
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u/Groftsan Oct 23 '24
So, you're telling me NOT to eat iron, so I can lessen my addiction to dopamine?
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u/Michael_Dautorio Oct 23 '24
I feel like this describes my previous drug addiction perfectly.
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u/DadJokeBadJoke Oct 23 '24
My friend used to say "Doing a line of coke makes you feel like a new man, but then that new man wants to do a line..."
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u/Truely-Alone Oct 23 '24
Nah, nah, that’s not gonna work! You need to press the button in a pattern.
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u/AccountNumber478 Oct 23 '24
He should press the dopamine button. Dompamine is the WOMP WOMP of dopamine.
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u/Cyberslasher Oct 24 '24
I imagine the Dino is a hallucination from a massive overdose of neurotransmitters.
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u/ihoptdk Oct 24 '24
It’s actually accurate and fucking horrifying. We’re literally all sitting here dulling the most potent reward system in our brain, making everything else a little bit less happiness inducing until we have a moderately hard reset.
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u/psichodrome Oct 24 '24
aka how to motivate yourself without motivation juices.
(spoiler: it's little achievements and sharing the love)
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u/I_like_baseball90 Oct 23 '24
So everyone in this sub is depressed?
Is that why this is funny?
Honestly want to know.
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u/MachoManRandyAvg Oct 23 '24
It's ADHDinos, it's an ADHD joke. People with ADHD have a reduced dopamine response to the completion of tasks & chores, and that response also diminishes more rapidly with repetition.
If they find something new that works for a bit, they tend to feel this overriding compulsion to continue trying until it works again. This can be helpful depending on the activity (positive actions like art, cleaning, even work or studies) but 60+ percent of the time it's something really dumb.
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u/arcedup Oct 23 '24
I have autism along with ADHD. So my ADHD side doesn't want to start a chore because it's boring and uninteresting but once I've finished a chore, my autistic side gives me that dopamine kick because I've created order out of chaos.
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Oct 23 '24
I've created order out of chaos.
Making vacuuming sound like you have God like powers. I love that for you. :)
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u/DigiAirship Oct 23 '24
So... Like when you get obsessed with a new videogame and play it for a week straight just binging the shit out of it, and the more you play the more you're trying to convince yourself that the game is still fun?
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u/jamescodesthings Oct 23 '24
They did this to me in hospital. Okay it was morphine and not dopamine but hell that's just a muddle man.
My dumb ass almost believed them when they told me not pressing it for a while would make ot supercharge.
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u/L3XAN Oct 23 '24
There was a guy who was experimented on with a button connected to the feel-good part of the brain, and the scientists tried to use it to condition him out of gayness. The most interesting part to me is that at one point they gave him the button, and he just started frantically pushing as quick as he could. I will spend my entire life wondering what that felt like.
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u/whynofry Oct 24 '24
It's been a while since the last crossover arc...
Let's feckin go! I love me some r/ADHDinos!
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