The latest You Are Not So Smart Podcast is out and this one’s about games psychology.

In the beginning there’s a mention of an observation made about waiters and how they are able to remember customer orders despite the fact they don’t use special mnemonics or techniques help recall them. It is mentioned that their lack of focus on a single task/order is what helps them remember them all.

It then jumps into games and how quest logs have a similar effect in preserving memory of uncompleted tasks gamers come across with, some might even recall a small task they never completed while playing a game played years back.

This might be related to Achievements or Set Completion cards from the Mental Notes card deck.

Interesting effects mentioned: Endowed Progress Effect, Zeigarnik Effect (mentioned in the first paragraph).

Industrial Psychology is also mentioned, personally did not know that psychology applied to workplaces, organizations resided under this term.

“On average, a person preoccupied with money problems exhibited a drop in cognitive function similar to a 13-point dip in IQ, or the loss of an entire night’s sleep.”

The research article is: “Poverty Impairs Cognitive Function”.

I wonder when money finally goes away and we move to a resource-based economy, how empowered people will be.

This article seems to indicate being on the ‘Safety’ level (Maslow hierarchy) impairs cognition. But does it (IQ) decrease linearly, or exponentially as you climb the hierarchy? When does it stabilize?

Related to this: we know that when it comes to income, levels above 75k/yr tend to provide less reward due to a normalcy bias (which isn’t only applied to disaster situations) leading people to spend more money and also the rise in income not being matched linearly by productivity levels. (See YANSS Episode 6)