Have you ever wondered how to boost your chances of winning a game of rock, paper, scissors? The two-player game has three basic rules: rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. Scientists say the best way to win is to be random and unpredictable, and to not pay attention to what has happened in the previous round.
To find the secret of success, a team at Western Sydney University, in Australia, studied people’s brain activity during nearly 15,000 games of rock, paper, scissors. There were 31 pairs of players, who each played 480 rounds of the game on a computer. Afterwards, the researchers compared the results of the games with the recorded brain activity for the players.
The results showed that most people had a clear favourite…
