| In recent years,Internet Gaming Disorder(IGD)has been included as a formal addictive mental disorder by ICD-11.The problem of IGD is particularly prominent in China,and it is one of the main problems currently threatening the physical and mental health of young people and the happiness of their families.Therefore,exploring its cognitive neural mechanism has become an urgent topic.Impaired social function is one of the core characteristics and main diagnostic basis of IGD.The social function impairment of IGD has completely different manifestations in the gaming-related social context and the real social context.For example,individuals with IGD have higher social motivation,more social support,and have a cognitive processing advantages for gaming-related cartoon faces than healthy gamers in gaming-related social context,but have opposite manifestasions in the real social context.It is suggested that the value representation of IGD on gaming-related social behavior and real social behavior may be imbalanced.Meanwhile,social reward function reflects the positive value representation of individuals on social behavior.Therefore,we hypothesized that the difference in the social function impairment of IGD in game and real social context is likely to be caused by social reward dysfunction.Using the methods of questionnaire measurement,behavior experiment and behavior experiment combined with ERP technology,this study designed three studies and six sub-studies to explore whether individuals with IGD have a dysregulation effect of social reward function,the behavior manifestations and the cognitive neural mechanism of this dysregulation effect.Study 1 used the questionnaire measurement method to explore whether there is a dysregulation effect of social reward function in individuals with IGD.The study used the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale,the Gaming-related Social Reward Scale and Real Social Reward Scale adapted from the Social Anhedonia Scale to investigate the college students.The analysis results of 733 valid data show that there was a negative correlation between the individuals’ real social reward score and the IGD score,and there was a positive correlation between the individuals’ gaming-related social reward score and the IGD score.Moreover,the real social reward and gaming-related social reward scores can independent significantly predict the IGD score.Study 2 used behavioral experiment method to investigate the behavior manifestations of social reward dysfunction in social reward anticipation and social reward consumption of IGD.In study 2a,the social reward anticipation task was used to divide the reward anticipation into two dimensions,i.e.,anticipation intensity and anticipation valence.25 individuals with IGD and 25 healthy players were studied.It was found that individuals with IGD had significantly higher anticipation intensity and more positive anticipation tendency for gaming-related social reward anticipation than healthy players,but there was no difference in real social reward anticipation.Study 2b used social reward consumption task to study 24 individuals with IGD and 24 healthy players.It was found that individuals with IGD had significantly lower pleasant experience of real social reward than healthy players,but there was no difference in gaming-related social reward.Study 3 used behavioral experiments combined with ERP technology to explored the cognitive neural mechanism of social reward anticipation and three types of social reward consumption processing in individuals with IGD.Studies 3 a and 3b used the social incentive delay task combined with ERP technology to investigate the cognitive neural mechanism of expected social reward and social punishment avoidance processing in individuals with IGD by controlling the probability of social reward and social punishment,respectively.Study 3c used social judgement task combined with ERP technology to investigate the cognitive neural mechanism of unexpected social reward processing in individuals with IGD.The results showed that in terms of social reward anticipation,the Cue-P3(reflects the motivational attention resources invested in the evaluation of incentive cues)elicited by gaming-related social incentive cues of IGD was significantly larger than the real social incentive cues;the SPN(reflects the expectation of feedback results)elicited by gaming-related social positive anticipation of IGD was significantly larger than real social positive anticipations(study 3c only).In terms of social reward consumption,there is no significant difference between RewP(reflects the early reward effect of feedback results)elicited by expected real social reward and gaming-related social reward in individuals with IGD;RewP,FB-P3(reflects the working memory update ability)and LPP(reflects the extended affective effect of feedback results)elicited by gaming-related social punishment avoidance in individuals with IGD are all significantly larger than that elicited by real social punishment avoidance;RewP and LPP elicited by unexpected gaming-related social reward are significantly larger than that elicited by real social reward;FB-P3 elicited by unexpected real social reward in individuals with IGD was significantly smaller than that elicited in healthy gamers.In terms of the mechanism of interaction between social reward anticipation and consumption,there is a significant positive correlation between the Cue-P3 elicited by gaming-related social reward cue and the RewP elicited by expected gaming-related social reward in individuals with IGD,and the Cue-P3 elicited by real social reward cue and the RewP elicited by expected real social reward in individuals with IGD are negatively correlated.In summary,the main conclusions of this study are:(1)There is a dysregulation effect of social reward function in individuals with IGD,which shows that high degree of IGD is related to high gaming-related social reward value representation and low real social reward value representation.(2)The social reward dysfunction of IGD is manifested as a significantly higher reward anticipation intensity and a significantly more positive anticipation tendency of the gaming-related social reward in terms of reward anticipation,and a significantly lower reward experience of real social reward in terms of social reward consumption.(3)The dysregulated cognitive neural mechanism of social reward anticipation processing in individuals with IGD is to exert more motivational attention resources(Cue-P3)in the evaluation of gaming-related social incentive cues and higher positive cognitive neutral response(SPN)in gamingrelated social reward anticipation.(4)The dysregulated cognitive neural mechanism of social reward consumption processing in individuals with IGD is that the early reward effect(RewP)and the late extended affective effect(LPP)of gaming-related social punishment avoidance and unexpected social reward are higher than those of real social reward processing and worse working memory updating ability(FB-P3)in real social punishment avoidance and unexpected real social reward processing.(5)Interaction mechanism between social reward anticipation and consumption in individuals with IGD is that reward anticipation and consumption promote each other in the gaming-related social context,but the opposite in the real social context.The theoretical value of this study is to investigate the reasons why the social function impairment of IGD has different manifestations in games and real contexts from the perspective of social reward dysfunction,explore the different manifestations of social reward dysfunction of IGD in social reward anticipation and consumption,and reveal the cognitive neural mechanism of of social reward dysfunction in individuals with IGD.The practical value is that it provides a research basis for the joint intervention program of "blocking"(reducing gaming-related social reward anticipation)and "leading"(improving real social reward consumption)from the perspective of social reward dysfunction in individuals with IGD. |
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