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Feb
9

Video games, the male brain, and addiction

Cool. O.o

Some studies in the past have identified a link between the neurophysiological mechanisms behind dependence and video games; brain scans have shown that success in a game results in the release of dopamine in part of the reward circuit in the brain. Now a study from a team at Stanford University have examined whether there might be any neurological differences between men and women when it comes to video games and brain activation.

Video games, the male brain, and addiction.

posted at 1:24 PM | addiction, science

Comments

This research area is insightful. Thanks for posting this brilliant find, Cynthia! I especially found the correlation of spatial cognition, reward, and learning insightful.

I'm already predisposed to believe their (speculative) conclusions, yet after reading the Journal of Psychiatric Research article, I have questions. How does a game of clicking moving circles quickly generalize to videogames? How does their selection pool of Stanford students (which is biased toward education and mechanical technology) generalize to males and females that typically play videogames? If someone were motivated enough to be in an higher-educational institute (that is famous for geekiness in the heart of the Silicon Valley), would not their motivation be likely to contain a predisposition for finding technical interaction rewarding? What difference would it make if the participants had been informed of what the rules of play were (which is the typical use case for computer play)?If they define addiction by mesocorticolimbic activity, then what pleasurable activity does NOT meet this definition of addiction?

kennerly[TypeKey Profile Page] | May 24, 2008 at 1:21 PM

Here's some more along the same lines... Games Are a Guy Thing, Say Researchers.

Cynthia Nie[TypeKey Profile Page] | May 28, 2008 at 2:18 AM

Thanks again Cynthia. Hmm. I'm not making the connection from the experiment describing moving dots to a schema of territoriality. I guess I would get it if I played it. Going out on a limb, I'd be curious, then, about the neural signature of playing a small board of Go, which is a game of territory, par excellance.

And I wonder: How much influence does the interface device have on gender-bias? According to news of research, young male rhesus and green vervet monkeys prefer trucks to soft dolls. The girls played with both. I wonder if this trans-species preference would shed any light on the physical controller design of console, arcade, and PC computer games. The very interfaces and perhaps also the mechanistic simulation that occurs during user interaction might be preferable to boys over girls. Opinions abound. I'd be curious for research into acultural gender-bias in user interfaces. Like the doll that Diana Hughes is imagining, maybe girls would find a soft doll interface preferable.

kennerly[TypeKey Profile Page] | May 29, 2008 at 4:57 PM

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