Why the hell would you set your controls to inverted? Scientists are finally investigating that question, and the results may be more valuable than you think.
Scientists from Brunel University London are conducting an exploratory study of players who set their controls to ‘inverted’. That reports The Guardian.
With an inverted control, the Y-axis of the camera is reversed: when moving the analog stick upwards, players look down, and vice-versa.
The research is conducted by Dr. Jennifer Corbett, Co-Head of the Visual Perception and Attention Lab, Dr. Jaap Munneke and a number of psychology students. The researchers want to find out what visual perceptual skills influence how people interact with real or virtual environments.
“In general, we measure how quickly and accurately people can turn mental tracking, and how much they rely on different contextual cues when making spatial decisions,” explains Corbett.
“There are no right or wrong answers to the task, we’re just interested in how people behave differently. we correlate the data with a questionnaire about gaming behavior.
According to the researchers, the results could be valuable for game developers and other ‘visual technology’. In a broader context, it could also better predict how people respond to an environment full of information, highlighting the most important ones more effectively.
Currently the researchers are looking for participants for the online survey.
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