The cognitive, physiological and behavioural indicators of excessive and regular video gaming
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. Excessive FPS gamers had significant higher levels of behavioural impulsivity, consistent with addiction. Possible game training effects and the heterogeneous nature of gaming genres is discussed. Research has shown that playing FPS games improves visuo-spatial ability, but Manuscripts 1-4 all provide evidence of how genres affect gamers differently. Manuscript 5 set out to investigate whether visuo-spatial improvements in regular FPS gamers also apply to MMORPG gamers. There were no differences in visuo-spatial ability between non-gamers and MMORPG gamers, indicating a specific benefit from FPS gaming to visuo-spatial ability. Manuscript 6 extends the cue-reactivity and impulsivity investigated in the first two manuscripts by investigating physiological arousal and sensation-seeking in regular and excessive MMORPG and FPS gamers during gaming. The results showed that excessive MMORPG gamers used MMORPGs to lower their arousal whereas excessive FPS gamers used FPS games to increase their arousal. Together this thesis shows that excessive gaming is consistent with an addiction and there are significant differences between genres of game addiction. Furthermore, the aetiology of gaming addiction is related to impulsivity and arousal-seeking preferences, which differ by genre of game played.
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