Position preference and position change of hiders in the game of hide-and-seek

Abstract

We study common tendencies adult hiders have in choosing and changing positions in the game of hide-and-seek. In our case, the game takes the form of commercial and homemade advent calendars in which the creator has hidden Numbers 1, 2, . . ., 24 in a seemingly random way. By comparing the numberings in the 332 human-generated calendars with random numberings, we identify common tendencies that hiders share. We observe that hiders hide things far apart and spread out from each other, the behavior which is consistent with, but concurrently extends previous research on hiding and its connection with subjective randomness.

On being unpredictable and winning.

“…Outside of the domain of conflict and aggression, cognitive science has questioned whether humans can be unpredictable because they have difficulty being random(Burns & Vollmeyer, 1998; Cooper, 2016; Sanderson, 2018; Wagenaar, 1972; Warren et al, 2018; Wong et al, 2021). Our results speak to this issue in two ways.…”

“…For example, an aggressor who systematically alternates between minimum and maximum investment in attack would be highly variable yet also is, at least after some time, quite predictable—the same level of variability can be achieved by varying conflict expenditures more or less systematically, and any systematicity can make one behaviorally variable but predictable at the same time. Because people have difficulty generating randomness (Baddeley et al, 1998; Lahat-Rania & Kareev, 2023; Sanderson, 2018; Wagenaar, 1972), it may well be that people mix conflict actions in such a nonrandom, systematic way that they are variable but also predictable.…”

“…First, there is limited evidence that competitors are variable in their conflict behavior. Second, work in cognitive science calls into doubt whether variable mixing of actions during conflict makes competitors irreducible unpredictable to their opponents (Burns & Vollmeyer, 1998; Cooper, 2016; Sanderson, 2018; Wagenaar, 1972; Warren et al, 2018; Wong et al, 2021). Third, the biological and psychological mechanisms producing unpredictability remain poorly understood.…”

Order Through Disorder: The Characteristic Variability of Systems

“…Common tendencies were explored by comparing the number patterns in the human-generated calendars with random number patterns. The varying distance between the hidden numbers demonstrated an association between subjective randomness and the act of hiding (Sanderson, 2018).…”