After taking a spin through the Feb. 10 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience (oh yeah, we are ThatSmart here at ThatFan). We found a really interesting piece under the title Sports Fans Have a Selective Memory (we actually found an easier to understand/read report by Dan Peterson on his blog SportsAre80PercentMental.com).
Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...the most famous brain ever
Basically, the study, which was conducted at Duke was, “aimed at understanding the links between emotion and memory that might affect Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and how well people recall their personal histories,” according to Peterson.
Scientists used the Feb. 3, 2000 game at UNC’s Dean Smith Center, which Duke won 90-86 in overtime, to test both Tar Heel and Blue Devil fans on what they remembered best about the game (fan’s were chosen after passing a basketball literacy/super fan test…wish I could have taken those at school).
“Using game film gives researchers a way to see the brain deal with powerful, rapid-fire positive and negative emotions, without creating any ethical concerns,” Peterson said in his story.
It seems obvious to us that, “Test subjects were more accurate at remembering a successful shot by their own team than a miss by their team or a successful shot by the other team,” but since they literally put fans in an MRI machine and tested their actual brains and took pictures of them this is pretty cool. In layman’s terms, the idea of witnessing your favorite sports team win or lose is going to help us treat soldiers and first responders that deal with much worse.
Now, here comes the controversy…”A pilot study for the basketball experiment included a half-dozen women who had passed the super-fan test, but even after five or six showings of the game, their recall of the shots was too low to be useful.”
Did you just hear that? It was the sound of every single woman in America punching their boyfriend in the arm for reading that statement out loud. So, guys are better sports fans, huh (I’m just asking ladies…I’m a bigger fan of you than guys anyway)?
That wasn’t the end of the fun either…”the Duke fans and the UNC fans did equally well on the recall test, though the Duke fans tended to answer quicker and tended to be more sure of themselves.” (Remember, that the study was done at Duke and, “was supported by two grants from the National Institutes of Mental Health,” so it was a real study still)
React to me Tar Heels! (and ladies)…Dr. Venkman wants to hear your side of the story. 
Related posts:
- This is Your Brain on Sports – Rooting Makes you Smarter!
- This is Your Brain on Sports – Michigan and Ohio State Fans Help with Emotional Research
- Market Research Reveals Interesting Numbers About Fans – This is Your Brain on Sports
- This is Your Brain on Sports (NCAA Tournament Addition) – Underdogs Beware
[...] Shockingly, a study done at Duke finds that Duke fans are superior than UNC fans, and then men are better fans than women. And you thought Duke was full of a bunch of self-serving, patronizing, masogynistic douche fountains. Shame on you. <thatfan> [...]