Practice makes perfect - Multiboxing "retrains" the brain.

From: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/0907...tml?s=news_rss

Researchers in the United States have pinpointed the region of the brain that limits our ability to carry out more than one task at the same time — and have shown how, with training, the brain gets better at multitasking.

"Our brain is lousy at handling multitasking situations," says neuroscientist René Marois of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who led the work together with Paul Dux, a cognitive scientist who is now at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Even if the tasks are very simple, such as walking and chewing gum, "as soon as either needs concentration, we can't do them both without our performance suffering", says Marois.

When we try to pay attention to multiple stimuli — a red traffic light and an SMS alert on a mobile phone, for example — the stream of information flowing from sensation to action gets clogged up. Using a suite of neuroimaging and analysis techniques, Marois, Dux and their colleagues identified a region of the brain that holds up multitasking, and discovered that training gives this region a speed boost.

Has anybody found that they box better with practice?

I would hope so =) When I first started I pretty much sucked lol. If we didnt get better I'm sure alot would quit pretty fast. Even with programs like HKN, keyclone, etc. it's still alot to process.

it is a lot of info to process... god our brains are cool lol

but yeah ive gotten better at doing that, including managing time at school and stuff.. hummmmmm

maybe its helping my brain.. but the computer playing is also destroying the brain so tradeoff

Multitasking vs. focusing on a single task is always a delicate balance.

Push too far towards the multitasking and you get people with severe ADD.

Push too far towards singular focus and you get autism.

It is a delicate balance not to go too far in either direction, although there are times when a singular focus is actually highly useful (i.e. a surgeon during a complex procedure). I am of the opinion that the ability to handle multiple tasks with a minimum of loss of efficiency is as variable as other personal traits (intelligence, creativity, etc.) although with training I think that anyone can become more proficient at handling multiple tasks.

With no scientific basis at all, I suspect that I get better at this as much by 'muscle memory' as by actually thinking about several things at once in my head.

By this I mean:
After I have practiced how to react given a certain combination of circumstances, I can do much better if the same combination happens again. But throw a new combination at me, and I have to learn some of it again (eg new classes / different boss etc).

But then I am a bloke, and I hear we are (supposedly) challenged in the multi-task area ^^

Perhaps set-up is a factor? The 'mash one button' setups probably minimise the multitasking need, as do the 'all one class' setups.
Because of my PvE mash one button setup (may change later when I get better at this), I probably actually multitask more at work than when multiboxing!


In terms of responding to stimuli.. well, I was a healer in all the vanilla 40-man raids, if that isn't responding to multiple stimuli simultaneously then what is? :P
So maybe that is why I didn't have a problem with 5 clients, because I was already trained up.


Oh and.. LOL.. Quoted For Truth:

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Originally Posted by 'Ogloo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217287#post21 7287

maybe its helping my brain.. but the computer playing is also destroying the brain so tradeoff

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Yes definately i've gotten better,but I also found playing 1 char in PvP helps balance things out.
I'm in agreement with what Gomotron said.
Always balance things out :)

Interesting...at work I always have to jump between projects (usually only one or two are the main ones, but there is always some kind of filler work to be done it seems). It took me quite a while to get use to it and I had to force a bit of email organization on myself to avoid spending time on what needed to be done and to quickly grab things out of the "queue". Still improvements can be made...

I played a shaman for most of my early wow life. When I turned to multiboxing shaman was still the major building block for teams. I didn't want to just play multiples of the same char I had been playing. I decided to try a dk and reuse the existing shaman. It worked rather well when I tried combining tanking and healing. I decided to start over and have a paladin, priest, and mage that are just now getting past 60. It feels more complete than the previous setup despite having more to do. I found by having "zones" of keys where the left and right hand do different group roles (tanking/damage versus healing) works well. Perhaps this is more planning and muscle memory than getting better at multiboxing though...

There are times when I simply get overwhelmed, but I allow myself some time to go over the event and try to improve on it for the next time. I'm still at the point that I spend more time planning and thinking about how to play multi characters than actually playing...lol. For me that is actually one of the main fun factors of doing this.

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Originally Posted by 'Lash',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217343#post217 343

There are times when I simply get overwhelmed, but I allow myself some time to go over the event and try to improve on it for the next time. I'm still at the point that I spend more time planning and thinking about how to play multi characters than actually playing...lol. For me that is actually one of the main fun factors of doing this.

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Funny you should say this...I realized the other day that the part of the game I enjoy/spend the most time on is the meta-game -- that is, planning teams, figuring most efficient ways to play them, etc. I think I most enjoy fiddling with my "5Box Wow Planning" spreadsheet. :whistling:

I'm sick, I know.

To the OP: Definitely. I still flail with my 4 melee guys, but I'm getting better. It seems no matter how I have things setup there's always some slave wandering off trying to kill critters or sleep under trees.

Boxing requires discipline....sometimes you have to use a sharp switch to keep your guys in line!! :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by 'Xzin',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217273#post217 273

Has anybody found that they box better with practice?

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oh god, yes :thumbsup:

Reminds me of those "studies" that say nobody can effectively use dual monitors for more than one thing at a time in a productivity setting. Idiots.

I'd argue multi-boxing, and in fact multi-tasking, while initially difficult, leads to the concept of multiple focuses being a single focus with proper, for lack of a better word, processing resources being used in the execution of a task. People always tell me "I have no idea how you can operate ten computers at once." It's not hard, you just have to approach it as a single system. Its not really any different from driving. You have to pay attention to the cars around you and your surroundings, and your actions and reactions are more or less pre-programmed to behave in the manner that people would call "driving a car".

Of course, there is also a great deal of preparation involved and such things tend to require an intimate knowledge of all the processes involved.

I can definitely agree and relate with a lot of the responses. Once the same scenario happens enough your able to process the response without "thinking" about it.

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Originally Posted by 'Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217407#po st217407

If you were playing one toon in Molten Core and another in Black Wing Layer at the time, thats multitasking. Multiboxing is somewhere inbetween.

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That's what I call "point of focus". When you're attention is focused on one thing, you're fine. When you're trying to pay intricate attention to several things, your concentration falters and you start falling behind. Of course, this only lasts until you can incorporate the several things all in to one point of focus, assuming the task at hand is capable of doing so.

I generally find outputting to several tasks far simpler than absorbing input from several sources.

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Originally Posted by 'Xzin',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217273#post217 273

Has anybody found that they box better with practice?

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Oh of course. I am able to pay attention to alot more things happening to all my toons now then I did when I first started boxing 1 1/2 years ago.

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Originally Posted by 'Acerak',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217355#post2 17355

Funny you should say this...I realized the other day that the part of the game I enjoy/spend the most time on is the meta-game -- that is, planning teams, figuring most efficient ways to play them, etc. I think I most enjoy fiddling with my "5Box Wow Planning" spreadsheet. :whistling:

I'm sick, I know.

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Not at all. TBH sometims I love sitting there and theorizing up new ideas for macros and placement of them.

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Originally Posted by 'Ughmahedhurtz',index.php?page=Thread&postID=21739 0#post217390

Reminds me of those "studies" that say nobody can effectively use dual monitors for more than one thing at a time in a productivity setting. Idiots.

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Lawl wut? I use to have 4 monitors and used all 4 of them when studying various things out online over several websites all at once. Much more effiecent than doing it all on one screen.

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Originally Posted by 'Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217407#po st217407

I would argue that practicing multiboxing makes you better at multiboxing.

You're basically configuring your alts for remote control, not remote operation (meaning, all your toons are at the same place at the same time).

If you were playing one toon in Molten Core and another in Black Wing Layer at the time, thats multitasking. Multiboxing is somewhere inbetween.

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That's an interesting thought but tbh I have to disagree in your definition of multitasking.

One set of eyes can only directly focus on one thing peroid, however you can still be aware of other things that you are not directly focusing on and still efficiently perform several tasks at the same speed that you could do one. An example of what I'm talking about...


Say you're cooking some spahgetthi, you don't just cook the noodles, get that all taken care of, then just cook the beef, then just chop the vegtables, then just set the table. You do it all at once.

Get the Pot on the stove and start warming up the water, then start tearing up the ground beef, then add the noodles and oil, then start warming up the beef, then start cutting up your mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, garlic, w/e else you put in your spahgetthi, draining your noodles somewhere inbetween, and then removing the beef somewhere inbetween, mix it all together and you're done.

Now even though you were not DIRECTLY focused on the noodles and beef while you were preparing the sauce and setting the table, you were still aware of them and still prepared each item in the same amount of time as you would have prepared that one item if you just foucsed on one thing at a time. So instead of taking like 45 minutes to make the dish you took like 20 minutes.


In Multiboxing you can still be aware of several different things, espeically in a trinity group, even though you are only directly focused on one thing. Even though you might be hitting a tanking/dps macro, you're still aware that you need to heal this or that toon soon, then this ability is about to come of CD, then you need to reposition the tank here or there, then heal the tank, then the next ability is off CD, then you need a group heal, so on and so forth etc. So yes imho multiboxing requires multitasking.

I still can't pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time but somehow I think I'm pretty decent at playing 5+ different character classes at once. Every once in awhile just too much starts to happen at once and I panic and completely stop doing anything useful at all.

The car analogy is a good one, I think - when you first learn to drive, all you can handle is steering the car, it seems overwhelming.

Given time, you gain the instincts and habits to add to your ability list - check the mirrors, check the traffic, check the speed, check your gauges, etc...and later adding things like tuning the radio, talking to passengers, talking on the phone...

But another part of it, what I call the "Spidey Sense", comes into play - it's a combination of habit, intuition, and the other side of the brain processing. It's what tells you it's time to shift (if you drive a stick), if there's a cop around, if an accident's about to happen.

In the game, now that I'm past the basic framework issues of running a team, I'm finding I'm developing a spidey sense for some of my team members. Like, i know isntinctively that it's time for a stun from my rogue, or my pally should use Hammer of Doom (or whatever it's called). It's my brain taking in stimuli from right in front of me, and peripherally, added with experience and intuition. It's pretty cool.

Beyond that, most of us multitask. I'm a trained artist, my thinking tends to be more left brain (creative), so when I shift gears to MBing, which is definitely a right brain task, the left side mulls things over, and I can solve problems while simply running the team through quests and such. I've done this kind of thing since I was a kid, if I'm working on a painting or design or something, and I'm stick, I'll leave it alone and do something right brained - fix something, do manual tasks or chores, play video games - anything that unplugs the creative side of the brain. Give it enough time, my head will solve the problem and I can return to what I'm working on. I do that for the reverse, too - if I'm stuck at something right brain, I'll go do something creative, like draw, sculpt, do some 3d or Photoshop work, or play the guitar, and eventually the solution will pop up.

Our brains are pretty resilient things, and with the proper training and temperment, we can handle vast amounts of data, process it, and do other tasks at the same time. I've found that ADHD people tend to swing to one side of the brain, and they need more stimuli from both sides, or they need to process the data differently than a teacher insists.

For instance, when I was a kid, and I had to keep notebooks for class, and hand them in for review, I always got marked down for doodling in the margins. When listening to lectures, I'd get yelled at for not paying attention, because I was drawing. When I was studying, my father would yell to turn the tv or stereo off, because "you can't pay attention with that crap on!". (He was an engineer, a complete right brain person).

The reality was, I was paying attention 100% - my brain works better at remembering if I'm doing something like drawing while I'm listening. If I don't, then my mind wanders, and starts being creative on it's own, and I don't retain what I'm hearing. Same for studying - I do better with music on. It's almost an aggro-like thing - if music aggros the left side of my head, the right side can get down to serious work.

Who knows. I could be weird, or wrong, but a lot of these studies are crap, because they're trying to prove a thesis, and I tend to think the results are slanted. Our brains are tricky, elusive things, and I tend to think we know less about it than the people who study it would like to admit. :)

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Originally Posted by 'Tdog',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217477#post217 477

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Originally Posted by 'Ughmahedhurtz',index.php?page=Thread&postID=21739 0#post217390

Reminds me of those "studies" that say nobody can effectively use dual monitors for more than one thing at a time in a productivity setting. Idiots.

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Lawl wut? I use to have 4 monitors and used all 4 of them when studying various things out online over several websites all at once. Much more effiecent than doing it all on one screen.

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Exactly. Having your favorite news site and forum split on one monitor, and doing research and email on the other one/two/n+1 monitors. Some of us CAN keep more than one train of thought going. Which gives the lie to those who justify not giving employees enough monitor landscape because "nobody can multitask that much/good." ;)

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Originally Posted by 'Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217407#po st217407

If you were playing one toon in Molten Core and another in Black Wing Layer at the time, thats multitasking. Multiboxing is somewhere inbetween.

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Being a loot whore, I find myself doing this with VOA a lot. While it's not like I'm in VOA and Naxx, I have run multiple concurrent groups of VOA on my shamans. As long as the start times are offset by a few minutes/seconds I can mouse steer on one instance at a time while spamming my rotation.

When you first start flying planes, you learn to stay ahead of the plane.

"Fly the plane, don't let the plane fly you."

When you start, your brain seems like molasses. Carb heat, flaps, lights, seatbelts, radio, look for traffic, are your wheels down, etc etc
But after a while, everything becomes automatic (but you still better damn use the checklist!)

Same thing with multiboxing...

Personally, I'd say that the only relation to multiboxing and multitasking would be if you did it this way.

One monitor (and no PiP or anything), one keyboard / mouse, and no addon to alert you about slaves. Now, you're still allowed to use Keyclone / your choice of method to get the input from 1 source to multiple clients.

That way, you're actually having to monitor EVERYTHING on your own. No Jamba to warn you that your slave broke follow is dying, etc...Doing it with multiple monitors, PiP, addons, and all that make it more like "teamwork" even though it's one person controlling it. You get assistance from the other toons without your direct attention.

Now, I can safely say that I have definitely gotten better at boxing since I started. I've learned so much more about macros, I've started trying new things, mixing classes, etc...it definitely takes more once you start doing that, adds a whole new level of difficulty to the game. But, I still wouldn't say it's so much "multitasking" the way most of us do it. We've got a lot of help nowadays.

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Originally Posted by 'Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217407#po st217407

I would argue that practicing multiboxing makes you better at multiboxing.

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That's what I think. As I understand it, scientists have been saying for years that the brain is like a muscle-- the more you use it, the better it becomes at whatever you're using it for. And with repetition, we become better at things, such as playing a musical instrument, performing eye surgery, or multiboxing.

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"Fly the plane, don't let the plane fly you."

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I wish I had a pound (sterling!) for every time my instructor said that to me in the first few hours of training :) And the number of times my mind went blank on the the "I" in BUMPFITCH, which all quickly became second nature to me through practice.

You get better at pretty much anything you practice, and although I'm certain that there are side-benefits to certain types of activity (especially those which rely on reflex), I seriously doubt that there are any such side-benefits from multiboxing.

Those who do better at multiboxing - and progress faster through content (such as the one-man Kara gang) - are almost certainly just better mutl-taskers to begin with.

Other than PvP, most WoW multiboxing is about learning the encounters rote.

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Originally Posted by 'chaosultimamage',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217 648#post217648

Personally, I'd say that the only relation to multiboxing and multitasking would be if you did it this way.

One monitor (and no PiP or anything), one keyboard / mouse, and no addon to alert you about slaves. Now, you're still allowed to use Keyclone / your choice of method to get the input from 1 source to multiple clients.

That way, you're actually having to monitor EVERYTHING on your own. No Jamba to warn you that your slave broke follow is dying, etc...Doing it with multiple monitors, PiP, addons, and all that make it more like "teamwork" even though it's one person controlling it. You get assistance from the other toons without your direct attention.

Now, I can safely say that I have definitely gotten better at boxing since I started. I've learned so much more about macros, I've started trying new things, mixing classes, etc...it definitely takes more once you start doing that, adds a whole new level of difficulty to the game. But, I still wouldn't say it's so much "multitasking" the way most of us do it. We've got a lot of help nowadays.

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Um... this is a lot like flying a plane in zero visibility with no instruments... just because you have a tool to tell you the status of something doesn't mean you aren't multitasking - it means you have a consolidated location to get all the notifications you need.

When you play 5 of a single class/spec I can argue thats not multitasking most the time, thats doing the same thing 5x per keypress. Once you deviate you have stepped into multitasking for sure. Once that global cooldown is more than 1 thing to pay attention to, you have to dps and heal and tank, you have to watch positioning of your toons, etc.

Another great multitasking builder is raiding as any class, but very much so as a healer. Nothing says multitask like watching 25 life bars and healing them while ensuring you don't get a debuff from standing still while avoiding the glowy crap and sometimes, not always but sometimes jumping into the glowy crap.

UAV "pilots" typically control 3-4 planes at a time

Perhaps multiboxing make us better candidates for such jobs :)

Ya, I'd agree with the statement that multiboxing isn't really multitasking. Everything I have done is to remove the multiple tasking so I can play like I was a single toon.

However, ever since I started dating those twins I'd have to agree with multitasking gets better with practice. I am looking for some triplets now and then maybe an NFL cheerleading squad.

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Originally Posted by 'zanthor',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217779#post 217779

Um... this is a lot like flying a plane in zero visibility with no instruments... just because you have a tool to tell you the status of something doesn't mean you aren't multitasking - it means you have a consolidated location to get all the notifications you need.

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Nah, all your instruments are on the first toons screen. You can see their health and mana, and you can see where they are if you pay attention constantly. Using the addons and pip, etc... is like 5 people, flying 5 planes in a formation, and you're the leader. You relay how to do it, when to do it, and monitor the process.

I'd say it was multitasking if you had 5 monitors, one per toon, and had to actually watch each screen seperately to monitor something. But WoW already handles that for the most part.

I think that its more a case of developing a decent scan pattern (life flying an aircraft on instruments). As long as you can identify issues, and prioritize them, then it's more a case of work list management than real multi tasking.

The stuff I read basicaly said that we can do 2 things, provided that one is a "trained response" type activity. the rest is a case of managing those 2 "processors"

The combination of training, prioritizing and engagment is what has me hooked on boxing. - I never feel that engaged playing solo.

I know your pain Flekkie I was a healer during Vanilla as well, amazingly enough I took my healer to new height's since he never really had that great gear (pally gear was always a pain) but I was one of the better healers. I don't multitask I mash buttons! But whats wrong with mashing buttons? I got to give it to some of the other guys that have there set up with Hardware might be more of a multitask then the software guys. I don't know my brain does not work so well now a days....

Studies have shown that juggling has a similar effect and actually causes a section of your brain to grow to handle the need. Then you have people juggling while on a unicycle and so on.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5615.php

I multitask quiet well at work and at home but i've been doing it for years, so yeah practice builds the the brains ability to handle it.

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Originally Posted by 'Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=217407#po st217407

I would argue that practicing multiboxing makes you better at multiboxing.

You're basically configuring your alts for remote control, not remote operation (meaning, all your toons are at the same place at the same time).

If you were playing one toon in Molten Core and another in Black Wing Layer at the time, thats multitasking. Multiboxing is somewhere inbetween.

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This is what its like to heal and dps in a raid. Too much going on! Something's gotta give....

I think we multibox we dont really multitask. If we did then we wouldnt be using all these mods to forward information from the slave accounts to the main account. Its simply learning to play a [tank] as well as having the [ranged dps] abilities of a [ranged dps class] and then toss in another set of keys that make the [tank] have healing abilities from a [healer] hehe :)

Its learning to pay attention to more, its all the same tasks, its not multi tasking.. Even those who watch TV or something while box grinding, its just learning what things to pay attention to :)