web Tetris vs. trauma

from book: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant 

"After people watch an especially upsetting film clip, over the next week they typically have six or seven disturbing flashbacks. But if they’re randomly assigned to play a few rounds of Tetris right after watching the scene, it cuts their flashbacks in half over the next week. Somehow, the act of rotating, moving, and dropping geometric blocks shields us from intrusive thoughts and aversive emotions"

the Tetris effect illustrates key features of scaffolding

Tetris... changes how your brain constructs mental imagery.

Tetris is effective scaffolding because it helps you bypass a particular challenge

to be effective, the critical period seems to be the next 24 hours

Tetris effect - Wikipedia

science article @Nature

Preventing intrusive memories after trauma via a brief intervention involving Tetris computer game play in the emergency department: a proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial | Molecular Psychiatry

Trauma, treatment and Tetris: video gaming increases hippocampal volume in male patients with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder - PMC (National Library of Medicine)

"...reductions in symptoms of PTSD, depression and anxiety between completion of therapy and follow-up in the Tetris group, but not the control group"


Tetris online: 

DeltaCoderr/Tetris-Game: A Basic Tetris Game made from JavaScript & HTML. @GitHub (MIT)
A Tetris Game made from JavaScript & HTML. Play the game Here.

Basic Tetris HTML and JavaScript Game

left and right arrow keys: move

up arrow key: rotate

down arrow key: drop

space or digit 2: hard drop