The human ability for random-sequence generation (RSG) is limited but improves in a competitive game environment with feedback. However, it remains unclear how random people can be during games and whether RSG during games can improve when explicitly informing people that they must be as random as possible to win the game. Nor is it known whether any such improvement in RSG transfers outside the game environment. To investigate this, we designed a pre/post intervention paradigm around a Rock-Paper-Scissors game followed by a questionnaire. During the game, we manipulated participants’ level of awareness of the computer’s strategy; they were either (a) not informed of the computer’s algorithm or (b) explicitly informed that the computer used patterns in their choice history against them, so they must be maximally random to win. Using a compressibility metric of randomness, our results demonstrate that human RSG can reach levels statistically indistinguishable from computer pseudo-random generators in a competitive-game setting. However, our results also suggest that human RSG cannot be further improved by explicitly informing participants that they need to be random to win. In addition, the higher RSG in the game setting does not transfer outside the game environment. Furthermore, we found that the underrepresentation of long repetitions of the same entry in the series explains up to 29% of the variability in human RSG, and we discuss what might make up the variance left unexplained.

Executive functions are set of processes of human cognition which coordinate information, schedule actions and control attention. Random sequence generation is a crucial marker of executive functioning. The inability to generate random sequences can reveal a lot about the underlying impairments, if any. In this paper, a cognitive load inducing task is paired with a random sequence generation task resulting in a dual task paradigm. The participants are asked to add few numbers mentally and simultaneously generate a random sequence. Eye tracker has been used in the present study to understand the behavioral aspects of the stimulus. The comparisons of single and the dual task conditions showed that the cognitive load demanding task disrupted the overall performance as same attentional resources are used by both the tasks. Thus, cognitive load has huge effect on performance of random sequence generation task. This fact is well supported by introducing a measure called the load index which can be used to quantity the load induced by a cognitive load demanding task. The measure is derived based on the pupillary responses. Results confirm that the proposed measure is a reliable indicator of the load imposed on an individual. The proposed measure can be used for assessing the cognitive control while executing a complex task.