Recently, according to a study published in *New Scientist*, to win at the game of 'rock-paper-scissors,' it might be worth trying to close your eyes. Closing your eyes may help control the behavior of unconsciously mimicking others' actions. Richard Cook and his colleagues at the University of London had 45 adults play several rounds of 'rock-paper-scissors,' with one or both players blindfolded. When one person was blindfolded, draws increased noticeably, but the blindfolded person was more likely to win than the one who could see. Richard Cook found that the player who could see often made their move about 200 milliseconds later than the blindfolded player, indicating that people unconsciously imitate their opponent's actions during the game. A psychology expert at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, said this imitation is 'uncontrollable,' which also shows that we can quickly be influenced by those around us.
Blindfolded player, greatly increased chance of a draw
Richard Cook's study at the University of London also found an interesting phenomenon: in matches where one player is sighted and the other is blindfolded, the likelihood of a draw significantly rises; the sighted player takes about 200 milliseconds longer to make a move or change their move than the blindfolded player. Normally, moving later should be an advantage, so why does it lead to fewer wins and more draws? In his paper, Richard Cook hypothesized that this means when we see the opponent make a move, we subconsciously and spontaneously imitate them, which explains the surge in draws; the sighted player may be influenced by this and 'lose focus,' resulting in a loss.
'The so-called winning without a move is just this principle,' said Chen Huaiyong, head of Xinhai'an Psychological Counseling in Dalian, in an interview. In games like cards or mahjong, people often use various strategies to win, but the result often favors the player who does not follow a set pattern.
'This is a simple psychological principle that we call the effect of cognitive processing,' Chen Huaiyong said. This is a psychological process of strategy or decision-making, falling under the domain of management psychology, and similar experiments exist academically. A blindfolded player does not engage in attention processing, nor do they process the opponent's emotions; they are simply making a decision, with their brain only going through the decision process, which then leads to action.Blindfolded players lack two psychological processes: one is the process of attention, and the other is the reasoning process for judging emotions. In competitive sports, psychological activity is most evident in that the more complex the mental processing, the more interference factors are generated, which makes it easier to make mistakes when making judgments and decisions. The alleged rock-paper-scissors winning secrets online are not completely effective. Furthermore, there is a widely circulated chart online supposedly created by high-IQ individuals abroad, titled 'Rock-Paper-Scissors Winning Method for Every Round,' which contains seven major winning secrets. Secret 1: Start with Rock. Men usually like to throw a fist the first time. So if you play with a man, you can try throwing Paper first. Secret 2: Serve Scissors. Following the above, experienced players will throw Paper first. If you encounter such a player, you can throw Scissors. Secret 3: Two Rocks. If your opponent throws Rock twice in a row, you can infer that your opponent will throw Scissors or Paper next. People dislike being predicted, so they won't throw the same move three times consecutively. Secret 4: Follow the crowd. Inexperienced players often subconsciously imitate your last move. In this case, you can throw the corresponding move to win. Secret 5: Observe the fingers. When the opponent is preparing to make a move, carefully observe their fingers. Rock: all the fingers are clenched; Paper: all the fingers are relaxed; Scissors: only two fingers are relaxed. Secret 6: Throw Paper directly. If it cannot be predicted, just throw Paper. According to probability statistics, the probability of throwing Paper is 29.6%, Rock is 35.4%, and Scissors is 35%. Secret 7: Observe before the match. Watch how your opponent plays with others. Do they have a preferred move? Do they have a fixed pattern in their sequence of moves? Make a strategy based on this. After testing these seven major winning secrets, it was found that players who applied the secrets in matches could indeed increase their winning rate to some extent, but it was not completely effective. Moreover, it has a fatal flaw: if your opponent has also seen these secrets, everything goes back to square one.
