Impaired decision-making under risk is associated with gaming-specific inhibition deficits among college students with Internet gaming disorder

The experimental analysis of problematic video gaming and cognitive skills: A systematic review

“…The findings are contrasting with some studies demonstrating a clear impairment among problematic gamers [39,46], or partial support [40,42,44], while others show no such association [41,43]. The differing results may partially be explained by the tasks used, and thus, the type of inhibition tested.…”

“…The findings on risky decision-making have been replicated using the Cups Task (i.e., another task assessing probability discounting), showing the same findings, i.e., riskier choices for the problematic gamers [40,53]. Furthermore, using the GDT task among 38 participants (including 19 problematic gamers according to a modified version of the IAT for World of Warcraft), Pawlikowski and Brand [54] reported the same finding.…”

“…Two studies have shown an impaired inhibition level among gamers [39,40]. One study failed to find any result regarding a Go/NoGo task, but only recruited 30 gamers [41], compared to other studies (n = 52 [39] and n = 66 [40]).…”

“…Furthermore, the researchers found a significant and negative correlation between addiction severity and GDT score. Yao and colleagues [40] also demonstrated that problematic gamers had a lower improvement in the IGT than non-players.…”

“…Two studies have used Stroop tasks to assess inhibition among gamers. While one failed to find any significant association between pathological videogame play and inhibition [40], the other found partial support [42]. 8 Colzato et al [43] explored the other type of inhibition, the restraint of prepotent motor response, among 26 First-Person Shooter (FPS) gamers (playing at least five hours a week for a year) using the Stop-Signal Task (SST).…”