Abstract
Manipulating different behavioral characteristics of gambling games can potentially affect the extent to which individuals persevere at gambling, and their transition to problematic behaviors. This has potential impact for mobile gambling technologies and responsible gambling interventions. Two laboratory models pertinent to this are the partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE) and the trial spacing effect. Both of these might speed up or delay the acquisition and extinction of conditioned behavior. We report an experiment that manipulated the rate of reinforcement and inter trial interval (ITI) on a simulated slot machine where participants were given the choice between gambling and skipping on each trial, before perseverative gambling was measured in extinction, followed by measurements of the illusion of control, depression and impulsivity. We hypothesized that longer ITI’s in conjunction with the low rates of reinforcement observed in gambling would lead to greater perseverance. We further hypothesized, given that timing is known to be important in displaying illusory control and potentially in persevering in gambling, that prior exposure to longer intervals might affect illusions of control. An interaction between ITI and rate of reinforcement was observed, as low reinforced gamblers with a long ITI gambled for longer. Respondents also displayed extinction and a PREE. Gamblers exposed to a higher rate of reinforcement gambled for longer in acquisition. Impulsivity was associated with extended perseverance in extinction, and more depressed gamblers in the high reinforcement short ITI group persevered for longer. Performance in the contingency judgment failed to support the second hypothesis: the only significant contrast observed was that participants became better calibrated as the task progressed.
Highlights
The emergence of new gambling technologies comes with the concern that novel reinforcement schedules might increase the risk of harm to gamblers
We report an experiment investigating the effects of partial reinforcement and timing on perseverative gambling behavior, as these may
To study the effect of behavioral and trait variables on acquisition behavior, an offset negative binomial regression model was used to control for differential effects of exposure, where the same variables were used for the restricted and full factorial models as the extinction data
Summary
The emergence of new gambling technologies comes with the concern that novel reinforcement schedules might increase the risk of harm to gamblers. Models of problem gambling assume there are a set of common behavioral and cognitive processes underpinning the development of addictive behavior (Blaszczynski and Nower, 2002; Sharpe, 2002). We report an experiment investigating the effects of partial reinforcement and timing on perseverative gambling behavior, as these may. Deficits in processing partial reinforcement have been previously observed in heavy gamblers (Horsley et al, 2012), while increasing inter trial intervals (ITIs) facilitates the acquisition of conditioned behavior (Gallistel and Gibbon, 2000). In this report we outline an experiment in which participants played on a simulated slot machine on which win frequency and ITI were manipulated between groups and perseverance in extinction was measured.
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