Abstract
Morra is a 3,000-years-old hand game of prediction and numbers. The two players reveal their hand simultaneously, presenting a number of fingers between 1 and 5, while calling out a number between 2 and 10. Any player who successfully guesses the summation of fingers revealed by both players scores a point. While the game is extremely fast-paced, making it very difficult for players to achieve a conscious control of their game strategies, expert players regularly outperform non-experts, possibly with strategies residing out of conscious control. In this study, we used Morra as a naturalistic setting to investigate the necessity of attentive control in generation of sequence of items and the ability to proceduralize random number generation, which are both a crucial defensive strategy in Morra and a well-known empirical procedure to test the central executive capacity within the working memory model. We recorded the sequence of numbers generated by expert players in a Morra tournament in Sardinia (Italy) and by undergraduate students enrolled in a course-based research experience (CRE) course at Lawrence Technological University in the United States. Number sequences generated by non-expert and expert players both while playing Morra and in a random number generation task (RNGT) were compared in terms of randomness scores. Results indicate that expert players of Morra largely outperformed non-experts in the randomness scores only within Morra games, whereas in RNGT the two groups were very similar. Importantly, survey data acquired after the games indicate that expert players have very poor conscious recall of their number generation strategies used during the Morra game. Our results indicate that the ability of generating random sequences can be proceduralized and do not necessarily require attentive control. Results are discussed in the framework of the dual processing theory and its automatic-parallel-fast vs. controlled-sequential-slow polarities.
Highlights
Morra is an ancient hand game still played nowadays
As the experiment required the acquisition of data from a semi-naturalistic setting in an open-space (Morra tournament in a central square of a small town in Sardinia, Italy) and in a university setting, the sampling process presented some constraints in sample size, age and gender stratification
In this study we wanted to investigate whether it is possible to proceduralize the generation of random sequences of numbers
Summary
Morra is an ancient hand game still played nowadays. In its more diffuse version, two players extend one arm in front of the opponent to show a number of fingers, while simultaneously shouting a number from 2 to 10. The Morra paradigm offers the possibility to verify if practice can reduce the interference effect of the concurrent cognitive load by investigating whether Morra expertise reduces the costs of multitasking in random number generation Within this theoretical framework, it is interesting to compare RNGT performances during Morra and during RNGT in expert and naive Morra players. In terms of within-group comparisons, we expect to find metrics of randomness in expert players to be nearly equivalent when they play Morra or perform RNGT, whereas a large difference is expected to be found in beginners Such findings would suggest that Morra players do not suffer the costs of multitasking while playing Morra because they are able to proceduralize the generation of random numbers.
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