Challenge: Neuropsychology (Learning)

Welcome back to my attempt to define how games challenge us by looking at the areas of brain function listed on the Wikipedia entry for Neuropsychology and seeing which ones games test.

The last article, on Decision Making, sucked. I'll return to the topic later, provided subsequent topics (like planning and problem solving) don't cover what I wanted decision making to cover. But in the meantime, on with learning.

What is learning?
Learning, like decision making, covers a lot of ground. Fundamentally, it's the acquiring of knowledge. There is conscious learning and unconscious learning. Conscious learning is intentional, motivated. (How do I get past the troll?) Unconscious learning is done when we form responses to stimuli without thinking about them. (A ding sound usually means money or some other good thing.) Games are generally very goal oriented, so they tend to test conscious learning.

What tools do players get for learning?
Some games give the player help text (in a manual, in the game's help screen, in dialog, in context sensitive pop ups) and challenge the player to apply the knowledge contained therein. Some games give opportunities for observation. Some games rely on trial and error. All of these can be done well (even trial and error, though I usually hate it). And all can be done poorly.

How is learning fun?
Being able to make sense of something that didn't make sense before can give feelings of mastery and accomplishment.

How is learning not fun?
Many times learning is a letdown. When it turns out there is less under the surface than I thought, or when I find a boring dominant strategy, that's when learning can wreck a game.

Foundations
Learning can only happen when a proper foundation has been laid. If a game assumes players understand Schenkerian analysis going in, that game is going to be very frustrating for most people. While that's an extreme example, games have required knowledge of counting systems outside of base ten, knowledge of the properties of light, and knowledge of how gas and fluid pressure work.

Motivation
Motivation is a key part of conscious learning. Sure, I could spend a lot of time figuring out the best possible configuration of magic gems in my sword, but if the game's not hard to begin with, why bother?

So what's the takeaway?
From play mechanics to the way information is displayed to the controls, even the simplest games can require a lot of learning.