Recently, the number one search time was "Chinese University Researchers Release Rock-paper-Scissors Winning Strategy". All netizens on the Internet are also sprinkling flowers and bricks. Some people think that this kind of research is interesting and interesting, but many more people feel that "Chinese scientists have nothing to do when they are full".

After reading the news carefully, Xiaochuang still felt that most netizens had misunderstandings about this matter. If you just think that "rock-paper-scissors" is a child's mentally handicapped game, then you may be missing out on a wonderful study of game theory. You must know that "Rock-Paper-Scissors" is actually a world-class strategy game, which combines many high-IQ talents such as logic, probability, psychology, stress resistance, and reflexes.

So Xiaochuang will give you a brief introduction to the ins and outs of the whole thing.

Researchers from Zhejiang University, Zhejiang Gongshang University and the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a study on their websites, in which they experimentally discovered a winning strategy for rock-paper-scissors.

The researchers recruited 360 students, divided them into six groups, and randomly paired up to play 300 rounds of rock-paper-scissors, with the winners receiving a small amount of RMB in each round. By observing the strategies used by the students, they discovered the game strategies that the winners or losers are used to.

To put it simply, if your scissors lose to your opponent's rock, then you are more likely to come out with a paper that can beat the rock in the next round; And if you're the winner, you're more likely to make the same move in the next round. This is the strategy that the researchers summarized as winners, keeping the status quo, and losers making changes.

The winning strategy of rock-paper-scissors is: if you are the loser, the next round will be replaced with a shot that can beat your opponent; If you are a winner, don't use your original shot again in the next round. That is, if you beat your opponent's scissors with rocks, then you can't come out with rocks in the next round, but you should come out with scissors, because there is a good chance that the opponent will come out with paper.

In addition, some netizens who seconded the proposal provided these data:

People are in the most relaxed mood when out of the cloth, and people are the most nervous when they come out of the stone, because the game of rock-paper-scissors is competitive, people are often nervous, so the probability of coming out of the stone is large.

Therefore, when the opponent makes the same shot for several times, the atmosphere becomes more and more tense, and the probability that the opponent will subconsciously find the stone is greater, so you can harvest the cloth.

Isn't it very lofty?

Next, Xiaochuang will share with you the views and opinions of professionals.

"Well, let me give you a high-level explanation, although not in this regard......

As you know, one of the basic assumptions of economics is the "rational man hypothesis", that is, it assumes that people are infinitely rational, so many things can be attributed to the category of game theory in mathematics, because the existence of infinite rationality is assumed, so many beautiful results can be made. And many economic theories are based on this assumption.

The problem is, we also know that people are not always rational. There are a lot of major economic events, such as bank runs, that are not entirely rational in their beginnings and developments. And at the micro level, the economic interaction between some people is not always rational. In order to study these phenomena, it is necessary to understand the extent to which human beings are rational, so that we can better develop theories that can address more situations.

However, human nature is very complex, and if you study very complex activities at once, it will be difficult to find results. As a result, researchers generally start with simpler games.

For example, if n people quote numbers between 1 and 100, the person closest to 2/3 of the average of all the numbers reported wins. If all the participants were infinitely rational, then apparently everyone would report 1, but in fact this is not the case.

And this study of guessing boxing is no different. If all participants were infinitely rational, then the best strategy for each person would be to mix the three choices completely randomly at a 1/3 ratio, and the statistics of the results of multiple rounds confirm that the mixing ratio is indeed about 1/3.

But what about randomness?

As a random number generator, the human brain performs very poorly and many times can be predicted. For example, if you were asked to quote a number between 6 and 27, most people would quote a number in their teens to early twenties, not 7 or 25, although the probability of each number is the same.

In this study, we found out the tendency of the human brain to react in guessing boxing. If it's completely random, no matter what happens in this round or what outcome you get, it shouldn't affect the next choice. But the reality is not like that at all. What Chinese scientists have discovered is the specific way in which the results of the previous round affect the choices of this round.

This is another step in our rational understanding of the irrational. From this step, it may be possible to understand human irrational behavior more deeply in the future, so as to develop theories that can more deeply and accurately describe human society and economy.

In fact, in the final analysis, it is still an attempt by people to understand themselves. A lot of people who spray don't even understand themselves. In fact, many of these research efforts ultimately lead to the ultimate goal of understanding oneself, that is: what is human being human? ”

The above is from Fruitshell.com and was written by Fang Xian (member of the Scientific Squirrel Society, Master of Informatics).

The above content is just a brief introduction provided by Xiaochuang for everyone, if you want to study more deeply, Xiaochuang has prepared these resource links for you.

1. Official website of the International Stone Association:

Anything that is even a simple game requires wisdom and practice to be proficient. So let's change our attitude towards things and start by playing "rock-paper-scissors"!