On Brainwaves and First Person Shooters

Hypothesis

If the brain can predict when an event will happen, it can consciously perceive it faster. This is because brainwaves, which are the basis of conscious perception, synchronize with predictable events. Sensory inputs are consciously perceived at the start of each brainwave; inputs that miss the cutoff must wait until the next brainwave. By timing brainwaves to coincide with salient events, the brain can speed up conscious perception by no more than one brainwave period.

Impractical Applications

First let's reduce FPS video games to their most basic mechanics. Two players inhabit a simulated 3D world, which they interact with through a first person perspective. The goal of the game is catch sight the other player before they catch sight of you.

An engagement is when two players are in each other's line of sight. Let's restrict our analysis to situations where both players are simultaneously visible on each other's computer screen. The player who makes the final movement into an engagement is the attacker. The other player is the defender.

Broadly speaking, attackers move through the world actively searching for their opponent, while defenders move to an advantageous position and wait for an attacker to move into their field of view. Most encounters happen between an attacker and a defender. Defenders are stationary and so they rarely find each other. Attackers often encounter each other as they are actively searching, however for this analysis only the player whose movement initiates the encounter is considered the attacker; the other player is merely a defender caught in an indefensible position.

The Attackers Advantage

By controlling the final movement, attackers can gain a fraction of a brainwave's head start over defenders. The attacker's brain can predict exactly when the engagement will begin, and so the attacker's brainwaves synchronize with the start of the engagement. A common tactic is to peek out from behind cover, which gives the attackers advantage, and then to rapidly hide again before any defenders react.

The Defenders Advantage

By controlling the location of engagements, defenders can force engagements to happen on favorable ground. Typically this means camping in locations where the attacker's viewpoint expands to cover a significant area; or where their own viewpoint is narrowly focused on an area which the enemy is likely to traverse. In either case the defender's challenge is made easier than the attacker's.