The cognitive, physiological and behavioural indicators of excessive and regular video gaming
type: CreativeWork
description: The past decade has seen the proliferation of video gaming as a pastime. Research has shown that a significant proportion of video gamers are gaming excessively, in that they report suffering significant negative consequences as a result of uncontrollable gaming. Subsequently, there has been debate as to whether excessive gaming constitutes an addiction. The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate behavioural, personality and physiological markers of addiction in excessive gamers to determine whether or not this behaviour can be classified as an addiction. A secondary aim was to address the tendency in cyberpsychology literature to treat gamers as a homogenous group by further investigating cognitive, behavioural and physiological differences between genres of excessive gamers. Manuscript 1 investigated the presence of an attentional bias, a phenomenon found in addiction, in gamers of the popular massively multiplayer online-role playing games (MMORPGs). The results indicated a clear attentional bias in excessive MMORPG gamers but not in highly engaged or non-MMORPG gamers, consistent with previous research investigating attentional bias in other forms of addiction. Manuscript 2 further investigated attentional bias by employing a non-reaction time dependent paradigm. There was an attentional bias for excessive MMORPG gamers, replicating Manuscript 1 findings and furthermore showed that the findings from Manuscript 1 cannot be attributed to faster reaction times in gamers. Study 2 in Manuscript 2 investigates evidence for impulsivity in regular and excessive MMORPG use, with results showing a limited relationship between impulsivity and MMOPRG addiction. Manuscript 3 and 4 investigated the relationship between impulsivity and another popular type of game known as first-person shooters (FPS). The results indicate a clear preference for highly impulsive individuals to play FPS games, but no behavioural indicators of impulsivity were found in regular FPS gamers. …
abstract: The past decade has seen the proliferation of video gaming as a pastime. Research has shown that a significant proportion of video gamers are gaming excessively, in that they report suffering significant negative consequences as a result of uncontrollable gaming. Subsequently, there has been debate as to whether excessive gaming constitutes an addiction. The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate behavioural, personality and physiological markers of addiction in excessive gamers to determine whether or not this behaviour can be classified as an addiction. A secondary aim was to address the tendency in cyberpsychology literature to treat gamers as a homogenous group by further investigating cognitive, behavioural and physiological differences between genres of excessive gamers. Manuscript 1 investigated the presence of an attentional bias, a phenomenon found in addiction, in gamers of the popular massively multiplayer online-role playing games (MMORPGs). The results indicated a clear attentional bias in excessive MMORPG gamers but not in highly engaged or non-MMORPG gamers, consistent with previous research investigating attentional bias in other forms of addiction. Manuscript 2 further investigated attentional bias by employing a non-reaction time dependent paradigm. There was an attentional bias for excessive MMORPG gamers, replicating Manuscript 1 findings and furthermore showed that the findings from Manuscript 1 cannot be attributed to faster reaction times in gamers. Study 2 in Manuscript 2 investigates evidence for impulsivity in regular and excessive MMORPG use, with results showing a limited relationship between impulsivity and MMOPRG addiction. Manuscript 3 and 4 investigated the relationship between impulsivity and another popular type of game known as first-person shooters (FPS). The results indicate a clear preference for highly impulsive individuals to play FPS games, but no behavioural indicators of impulsivity were found in regular FPS gamers. …
author: Metcalf, Olivia
language: en_AU
date published: 2013
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:07:11Z
provider: Australian Catholic University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian Catholic University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/151031