Shoot ’em up (or not)

There’s an interesting experiment taking place at the University of Chicago… they have a game which shows 120 different pictures of men in various city settings. Some have guns, some do not. The goals are to not shoot unarmed people (by pressing z on the keyboard), and to shoot people who have a gun (by pressing / on the keyboard). You have to decide quickly as the pictures flash by pretty fast. I won’t say what they’re looking to prove (so you don’t have a preconceived notion of what the result might be), but you can read more here and here after you’re done.

Stereotyping and Prejudice Research Laboratory – Shooter Game

My results:

Score: 540
Average reaction times:
Black armed: 713.16 ms
Black unarmed: 1596.96 ms
White armed: 740.52 ms
White unarmed: 821.08 ms

Here’s what Bleys got!

Score: 670
Average reaction times:
Black Armed: 592.36 ms
Black Unarmed: 772.2 ms
White Armed: 607.72 ms
White Unarmed: 727.96 ms

His times are amazingly fast. He plays a lot of games, though, so he’s kinda twitchy like that. ;)

If you try it, feel free to share your results here. What does it all mean? I don’t know yet… will continue to ponder.