Seek, and You Shall (Try to) Find it Nearby

People looking for hidden objects prefer to search nearby, even though the objects are most likely kept in harder-to-reach places, a study suggests.

People looking for hidden objects prefer to search nearby, even though the objects are most likely kept in harder-to-reach places, a new study suggests. The finding may lead to more realistic environments for gamers and may also help law enforcement develop better search equipment.

In the study, subjects were divided into two groups and instructed to both hide and seek objects in either a physical room or a virtual-reality setting that resembled the real room’s dimensions. In the virtual room, researchers found that on average, subjects asked to locate hidden stuff preferred to poke around in spots close to their immediate vicinity. But when trying to hide objects, they ventured out farther (about 5 feet more) from their starting point.

When roles were reversed, people who had already hidden objects tended to move farther away from the starting place consistent with where people normally hide objects. It was as though the hiding primed them into what kinds of locations things might be hidden in. The study’s results may help game developers create computer-generated characters with more human-like characteristics, which should make the games more fun.

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