Gamified CBM may be a promising way to reach at risk youth, but the term "game" should be used with caution. Suggestions are made for future research.

BackgroundYoung adults often experiment with heavy use of alcohol, which poses severe health risks and increases the chance of developing addiction problems. In clinical patients, cognitive retraining of automatic appetitive processes, such as selective attention toward alcohol (known as “cognitive bias modification of attention,” or CBM-A), has been shown to be a promising add-on to treatment, helping to prevent relapse.ObjectiveTo prevent escalation of regular use into problematic use in youth, motivation appears to play a pivotal role. As CBM-A is often viewed as long and boring, this paper presents this training with the addition of serious game elements as a novel approach aimed at enhancing motivation to train.MethodsA total of 96 heavy drinking undergraduate students carried out a regular CBM-A training, a gamified version (called “Shots”), or a placebo training version over 4 training sessions. Measures of motivation to change their behavior, motivation to train, drinking behavior, and attentional bias for alcohol were included before and after training.ResultsAlcohol attentional bias was reduced after training only in the regular training condition. Self-reported drinking behavior was not affected, but motivation to train decreased in all conditions, suggesting that the motivational features of the Shots game were not enough to fully counteract the tiresome nature of the training. Moreover, some of the motivational aspects decreased slightly more in the game condition, which may indicate potential detrimental effects of disappointing gamification.ConclusionsGamification is not without its risks. When the motivational value of a training task with serious game elements is less than expected by the adolescent, effects detrimental to their motivation may occur. We therefore advise caution when using gamification, as well as underscore the importance of careful scientific evaluation.

Based on information processing models of anxiety and depression, we investigated the efficacy of multiple sessions of online attentional bias modification training to reduce attentional bias and symptoms of anxiety and depression, and to increase emotional resilience in youth. Unselected adolescents (N = 340, age: 11-18 years) were randomly allocated to eight sessions of a dot-probe, or a visual search-based attentional training, or one of two corresponding placebo control conditions. Cognitive and emotional measures were assessed pre- and post-training; emotional outcome measures also at three, six and twelve months follow-up. Only visual search training enhanced attention for positive information, and this effect was stronger for participants who completed more training sessions. Symptoms of anxiety and depression reduced, whereas emotional resilience improved. However, these effects were not especially pronounced in the active conditions. Thus, this large-scale randomized controlled study provided no support for the efficacy of the current online attentional bias modification training as a preventive intervention to reduce symptoms of anxiety or depression or to increase emotional resilience in unselected adolescents. However, the absence of biased attention related to symptomatology at baseline, and the large drop-out rates at follow-up preclude strong conclusions.

Adding (social) game elements can increase motivation to train, and mobile training did not underperform compared with the regular training in this sample, which warrants more research into motivational elements for CBM training in younger audiences.