Age-related differences in physiological responding to simulated electronic gambling

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Age-related differences in physiological responding to simulated electronic gambling Tarren Leon1, Phoebe E. Bailey1*, Michelle Maiuolo1, Gülten Benedek2 and Craig Gonsalvez1 1 Western Sydney University, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Australia 2 University of Hagen, School of Psychology, Germany Older adults aged 65 years or more are increasingly spending their time and money playing electronic gambling machines (EGMs). Consistent with the age-related positivity effect, the current study predicted that older adults would respond more positively than young adults to wins and fake wins (i.e., losses disguised as wins) during simulated EGM play. Autonomic measures of positivity are particularly important as they could help to explain older adults’ attraction to gambling. In the current study, young (n = 19; age range 18-35 years) and older adults (n = 26; age range 66-84 years) were given 1000 credits (i.e., $10) to bet with (10 credits per bet). They completed two blocks of 80 bets each that consisted of 15% wins (60 credits), 15% fake wins (5 credits), and 70% losses. A 5.5 s epoch (1.5 s pre- to 4 s post-outcome) of skin conductance response (SCR) and heart rate (HR) was analyzed. We found that HR increases did not differentiate outcome type, and were greater for young than older adults. Averaged across age group, SCR was greater for wins than losses, but did not differentiate losses and fake wins. This may be because the additional positive feedback that accompanies a fake win in commercial EGMs was removed from the current simulated version. The age groups also did not differ in self-reported enjoyment or excitement. Although the age-related positivity effect has previously been demonstrated in behavioral and neural data, there was no evidence for this effect in the current study, and the results do not support the notion that age-related positivity contributes to the maintenance of gambling. Rather, during EGM play, older adults experienced hypoarousal. Acknowledgements This research was supported under Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP130101420). Keywords: age differences, electronic gambling machines, Heart Rate, Skin conductance response, Arousal, fake wins Conference: ASP2015 - 25th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Sydney, Australia, 2 Dec - 4 Dec, 2015. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Psychophysiology Citation: Leon T, Bailey PE, Maiuolo M, Benedek G and Gonsalvez C (2015). Age-related differences in physiological responding to simulated electronic gambling. Conference Abstract: ASP2015 - 25th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.219.00005 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 10 Nov 2015; Published Online: 30 Nov 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Phoebe E Bailey, Western Sydney University, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Sydney, Australia, p.bailey@uws.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Tarren Leon Phoebe E Bailey Michelle Maiuolo Gülten Benedek Craig Gonsalvez Google Tarren Leon Phoebe E Bailey Michelle Maiuolo Gülten Benedek Craig Gonsalvez Google Scholar Tarren Leon Phoebe E Bailey Michelle Maiuolo Gülten Benedek Craig Gonsalvez PubMed Tarren Leon Phoebe E Bailey Michelle Maiuolo Gülten Benedek Craig Gonsalvez Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.