What if a video game could tell you if you were depressed? Technically, they already can if you spend 14 consecutive hours playing them while ignoring friends, family, and hygiene, though that usually requires either some self-awareness or a short conversation with a therapist.
But researchers at NYU Langone Health have now developed a depression-detecting game you can play on your phone, and according to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it only takes about three minutes. Hat tip to Gizmodo for bringing this to our attention.
No word yet on whether there are achievements to unlock, but if researchers say it takes three minutes to beat, somebody out there is going to speedrun their way to discovering they’re depressed in a world record 23 seconds.
Scientists Made a Phone Game That Can Detect Depression in About 3 Minutes
The study focuses on anhedonia, one of the major symptoms of depressive disorder. It’s the inability to feel pleasure from things that normally make people happy, like hobbies and food. The researchers say that about 70 percent of people with depression experience it, and it’s usually tied to what’s called a “reference point,” basically the brain’s constantly shifting idea of what a reward should be.
In the game itself, players collect apples from trees. Each tree produces fewer apples over time, forcing players to decide when it’s no longer worth sticking around or moving on to a new tree. Healthy participants stayed until the yield dropped to four or five apples. Depressed participants bailed way earlier, sometimes when the trees were still producing a bounty of eight apples. The more depressed someone was, the more quickly they moved on to a new tree.
So simple that even a child can use it to diagnose their depression
The point of it, according to the researchers, is that since depressed patients appear unable to reset their expectations normally after positive experiences, their brains essentially get stuck anticipating disappointment, thus making this little game a quick, inexpensive, easily repeatable way to test someone for depression.
The research team has already sought FDA clearance for the game to be used as a diagnostic medical device. Let’s just hope they don’t bloat the thing with microtransactions that reinforce depression rather than diagnose it.
The post Scientists Made a Phone Game That Can Detect Depression in About 3 Minutes, but Does It Actually Work? appeared first on VICE.
