Trends in Behavior-Analytic Gambling Research and Treatment

Exploration of the physiological response to an online gambling task by frequency domain analysis of the electrodermal activity

Online gambling has dramatically increased over the last decades, thus the study of the underlying physiological mechanisms could be helpful to better understand related disorders. Specifically, physiological arousal is well-known to play a key role in gambling behavior. In the present study, unconventional frequency feature of the electrodermal activity (EDA) was extracted (EDASymp_n) and compared to the most common heart rate variability (HRV) spectral parameters (LF, HF, HF_n, LF/HF) to measure arousal during an online gambling session. 46 subjects played online slot machines for 30 minutes, while EDA and ECG were recorded. In the analysis the gaming session was divided into three 10-minutes-long phases. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance was carried out for each spectral parameter, with the game phases as within-subjects factor. All the calculated parameters showed significant differences between the initial phase of the game and the last two (p < 0.001). In particular, EDAsymp_n displayed a reciprocal trend with respect to HF_n: an initial increase (decrease for HF_n) was followed by a plateau phase. LF exhibited a significant difference also between the second and the third phases. EDA frequency-domain analysis appears to be a promising method for physiological arousal assessment, by showing the same discriminative power of HRV spectral components. Further research is needed to emphasize these findings.Clinical Relevance-This promotes the use of a new and easy-to-implement method to assess sympathetic activity.

Risky Business: Increasing Risky Betting Through Rule-Governed Behavior

The present study replicated and extended previous research by exploring the extent to which rules altered participants' engagement in risky betting in an electronic blackjack game. A multiple-baseline across-participants design with predetermined phase changes was used to assess 4 recreational gamblers' betting patterns in blackjack across 3 phases. During baseline, participants played blackjack with no exposure to rules. In the faulty rules phase, researchers gave participants a rule that suggested larger payouts would occur if gamblers played let-it-ride bets. Let-it-ride bets were placed after a winning hand and required participants to wager their entire winnings on the next hand. During the correct rules phase, researchers gave participants a rule that suggested that the let-it-ride bets did not result in larger payouts. Data on let-it-ride bets across each minute of play were collected. The results of the study demonstrated that the frequency of risky bets increased when participants were exposed to the incorrect rule. Following participants' exposure to correct rules, risky bets decreased, but most participants did not return to baseline rates.

Behavior and Substance Addictions in Children: A Behavioral Model and Potential Solutions

Behavior and substance use addictions are increasingly prevalent in children with increased risk for substance abuse and mental health diagnoses in adulthood. This article proposes a comprehensive model of addiction to inform research on the prevention and treatment of childhood addiction, emphasizing skills training, mindfulness training, and broader treatment strategies consistent with acceptance and commitment therapy.

Studying Gambling Behaviors and Responsible Gambling Tools in a Simulated Online Casino Integrated With Amazon Mechanical Turk: Development and Initial Validation of Survey Data and Platform Mechanics of the Frescati Online Research Casino

Introduction: Online gambling, popular among both problem and recreational gamblers, simultaneously entails both heightened addiction risks as well as unique opportunities for prevention and intervention. There is a need to bridge the growing literature on learning and extinction mechanisms of gambling behavior, with account tracking studies using real-life gambling data. In this study, we describe the development and validation of the Frescati Online Research Casino (FORC): a simulated online casino where games, visual themes, outcome sizes, probabilities, and other variables of interest can be experimentally manipulated to conduct behavioral analytic studies and evaluate the efficacy of responsible gambling tools. Methods: FORC features an initial survey for self-reporting of gambling and gambling problems, along with several games resembling regular real-life casino games, designed to allow Pavlovian and instrumental learning. FORC was developed with maximum flexibility in mind, allowing detailed experiment specification by setting parameters using an online interface, including the display of messages. To allow convenient and rapid data collection from diverse samples, FORC is independently hosted yet integrated with the popular crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk through a reimbursement key mechanism. To validate the survey data quality and game mechanics of FORC, n = 101 participants were recruited, who answered an questionnaire on gambling habits and problems, then played both slot machine and card-draw type games. Questionnaire and trial-by-trial behavioral data were analyzed using standard psychometric tests, and outcome distribution modeling. Results: The expected associations among variables in the introductory questionnaire were found along with good psychometric properties, suggestive of good quality data. Only 6% of participants provided seemingly poor behavioral data. Game mechanics worked as intended: gambling outcomes showed the expected pattern of random sampling with replacement and were normally distributed around the set percentages, while balances developed according to the set return to player rate. Conclusions: FORC appears to be a valid paradigm for simulating online gambling and for collecting survey and behavioral data, offering a valuable compromise between stringent experimental paradigms with lower external validity, and real-world gambling account tracking data with lower internal validity.