Specific Cue Reactivity on Computer Game-Related Cues in Excessive Gamers

It has been posited that excessive computer game playing behavior, referred to as computer game addiction , meets criteria that have been internationally established to define drug addiction. Nevertheless, there have been no psychophysiological investigations of the underlying mechanisms available t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioral neuroscience 2007-06, Vol.121 (3), p.614-618
Main Authors: Thalemann, R, Wölfling, K, Grüsser, S. M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Addiction
Addictions
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Behavior
Behavior, Addictive - physiopathology
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain Mapping
Computer & video games
Computer Games
Computers
Cues
Electroencephalography - methods
Emotions - physiology
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Male
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Psychobiology
Psychological aspects
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychophysiology
Video Games
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Summary:It has been posited that excessive computer game playing behavior, referred to as computer game addiction , meets criteria that have been internationally established to define drug addiction. Nevertheless, there have been no psychophysiological investigations of the underlying mechanisms available to support the characterization of excessive computer gaming as behavioral addiction. To investigate whether excessive computer gaming parallels learning processes in development and maintenance (which are assumed to underlie drug addiction), the authors obtained a psychophysiological assessment of the (learned) emotional processing of computer game-relevant and -irrelevant cues. For this purpose, electroencephalographic recordings in excessive and casual computer game players were conducted. Significant between-group differences in event-related potentials evoked by computer game related-cues were found at parietal regions and point to an increased emotional processing of these cues in excessive pathological players compared with casual players. These results are in concordance with the suggestion that addiction is characterized and maintained through sensitization of the mesolimbic dopaminergic system along with incentive salience of specific addiction-associated cues.
ISSN:0735-7044
1939-0084
DOI:10.1037/0735-7044.121.3.614