The Influence Of Internet Gaming Disorder On Risky Decision-making And Inter-temporal Choice

With the development of science and technology and the enhancement of people’s needs to live better,there have been more and more diverse forms of mass entertainment.Among them,video games have become one of the most popular entertainment activities for children,teenagers and youth groups,and have been gradually penetrating into middle-aged and elderly groups.On the one hand,video games have greatly enriched people’s entertainment life,and have also been applied to educational activities,psychological catharsis,etc.,and even developed into one kind of electronic sports,which elicits an upsurge of electronic sports and drives the development of related industries.On the other hand,various problems have gradually emerged,such as the patchy quality of video games that some games have low greenness with a large body of violence,blood,horror,or pornography component;some players addicted to online games;and influencing cognitive functions,affect,behaviors negatively,and so on.Among them,Internet gaming disorder(IGD)has always been a research focus,and a social concern for people from all walks of life.In recent years,researchers have begun to pay attention to the impact of Internet gaming disorder on decision-making functions,however,there has been not yet a consistent conclusion.Previous studies have found that players with IGD exhibit impaired decision-making functions.They may choose more disadvantageous risky options in risky decision-making tasks,and may be more inclined to choose the immediate but smaller rewards when making inter-temporal decisions,showing higher impulsiveness.However,some studies did not find such evidence that players with IGD exhibit impaired decision-making functions.In addition,it is unclear whether players with IGD exhibit abnormal ERP component when making decisions.Therefore,this study recruited players with IGD and those play video games usually but not addicted to it(recreational Internet gaming users,RGU),and those never or hardly play video games(healthy controls),and explored the behavioral influence of IGD on risky decision-making and inter-temporal choice,as well as its cognitive neuro-brain mechanism.Study 1 recorded the behavioral data of 43 players with IGD,39 RGU,and 27 healthy controls from a modified Cups task and a delay discounting task.The Cups task results showed that players with IGD and RGU made less risky options than control group on risk disadvantageous level,and the difference between players with IGD and RGU was not significant.Delay discounting task showed that the area under the curve(AUC)of players with IGD was smaller than RGU and healthy controls,and the difference of AUC between RGU and healthy controls was not significant.That is,players with IGD did not exhibit impaired risky decision-making behavior,but exhibit impaired inter-temporal choice behavior.Study 2 recruited 24 male players with IGD and 26 male RGU,and explored their ERP component when making decisions.The Cups task results showed that players with IGD exhibited a significantly smaller P3 component than RGU on risk disadvantageous trials when making risky decisions.Players with IGD exhibited a significantly smaller N2 component in loss domain than gain domain on risk disadvantageous trials when making risky decisions.And when the risky decision-making outcomes were presented,there was no significant difference on FRN component between players with IGD and RGU,but players with IGD exhibited a significantly smaller P3 component than RGU when the feedback was negative in loss domain.The delay discounting task showed that players with IGD exhibited a significantly smaller P3 component toward short-term delay reward,while RGU exhibited a significantly smaller P3 component toward long-term delay reward.And players with IGD exhibited a significantly smaller P2 component toward short-term delay reward than long-term delay reward,while RGU did not exhibit such difference.That is,when making risky decisions,players with IGD are more impulsive and less sensitive to loss on risk disadvantageous level;when presenting risky decision-making outcomes,players with IGD are less sensitive to negative feedback in loss domain.When making inter-temporal choice,players with IGD prefer immediate rewards and exhibit poorer decision-making functions on long-term delay conditions.In conclusion,the decision-making function of Internet gaming disorder players is impaired.In theory,it enriches the theoretical research of behavioral and cognitive neuroscience in this field.In practice,it indicates that preventing video game players to be addicted and intervening decision-making function of addicted players will be a social and academic concern.