Portuguese validation of the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale–Short-Form

In the latest (fifth) edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) was included as a tentative disorder worthy of future research. Since then, several psychometric instruments to assess IGD have emerged in the literature, including the 9-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale–Short-Form (IGDS9-SF), the most brief tool available to date. Research on the effects of IGD in Portugal has been minimal and may be due the lack of psychometrically validated tool to assess this construct within this particular cultural background. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to develop and examine the psychometric properties the Portuguese IGDS9-SF. A total of 509 adolescents were recruited to the present study. Construct validity of the IGDS9-SF was assessed in two ways. Firstly, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to investigate the factorial structure of the IGDS9-SF in the sample and the uni-dimensional structure of the IGDS9-SF fitted the data well. Secondly, nomological validation of the IGDS9-SF was carried out and the nomological network analyzed was replicated as expected, further supporting the construct validity of the IGDS9-SF. Criterion validity of the IGDS9-SF was also established using key criterion variables. Finally, the IGDS9-SF also showed satisfactory levels of reliability using several indicators of internal consistency. Based on the results found, the IGDS9-SF appears to be a valid and reliable instrument to assess IGD amongst Portuguese adolescents and further research on IGD in Portugal is warranted

Interference with Processing Negative Stimuli in Problematic Internet Users: Preliminary Evidence from an Emotional Stroop Task.

Although it has been proposed that problematic Internet use (PIU) may represent a dysfunctional coping strategy in response to negative emotional states, there is a lack of experimental studies that directly test how individuals with PIU process emotional stimuli. In this study, we used an emotional Stroop task to examine the implicit bias toward positive and negative words in a sample of 100 individuals (54 females) who also completed questionnaires assessing PIU and current affect states. A significant interaction was observed between PIU and emotional Stroop effects (ESEs), with participants who displayed prominent PIU symptoms showing higher ESEs for negative words compared to other participants. No significant differences were found on the ESEs for positive words among participants. These findings suggest that PIU may be linked to a specific emotional interference with processing negative stimuli, thus supporting the view that PIU is a dysfunctional strategy to cope with negative affect. A potential treatment implication for individuals with PIU includes a need to enhance the capacity to process and regulate negative feelings

Diminished Frontal Theta Activity During Gaming in Young Adults With Internet Gaming Disorder

Cognitive control is essential for flexible, top-down, goal-directed behavior. Individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) are characterized by impaired prefrontal cortex function and cognitive control. This results in an increase in stimulus-driven habitual behavior, particularly related to pathological gaming. In the present study, we investigated the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in individuals with IGD. Twenty-four individuals with IGD and 35 healthy control (HC) subjects were recruited. We analyzed their EEG activity while the subjects played their favorite game (30-40 min duration). We compared the band power between the two groups. During gaming, the left frontal theta, alpha, and beta band activities were lower in subjects with IGD than in HCs. Moreover, the left frontal theta power negatively correlated with IGD severity. These results indicate that left frontal theta power could be used as a neurophysiological biomarker for the detection of diminished cognitive control patterns in individuals with IGD.ope

Meta-analyses of the functional neural alterations in subjects with Internet gaming disorder: similarities and differences across different paradigms

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has become a global public health concern due to its increasing prevalence and potential negative consequences. Researchers have sought to identify which brain regions are associated with this disorder. However, inconsistent results have been reported among studies due to the heterogeneity of paradigms and subjects. The present research aimed to combine the results of individual studies to provide a more coherent and powerful explanation. By selecting 40 studies utilizing a qualified whole-brain analysis, we performed a comprehensive series of meta-analyses that employed seed-based d mapping. We divided the existing experimental paradigms into 3 categories: game-related cue-reactivity, executive control, and risk-reward-related decision-making tasks. We divided all studies into three subgroups according to their paradigms. In cue-reactivity tasks, patients with IGD exhibited significant hyperactivation in the bilateral precuneus and bilateral cingulate and significant hypoactivation in the insula, but there were no differences in the striatum. In executive control tasks, patients with IGD displayed significant hyperactivation in the right superior temporal gyrus, bilateral precuneus, bilateral cingulate, and insula and hypoactivation in the left inferior frontal gyrus. In risky decision-making paradigms, IGD patients exhibited significant hyperactivation in the left striatum, right inferior frontal gyrus, and insula and hypoactivation in the left superior frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, and right precentral gyrus. Our study aimed to discover the similarities among all studies and to explore the uniqueness of the different paradigms. This study further confirmed the critical role of reward circuitry and executive control circuitry in IGD but not under all conditions

The potential interaction between time perception and gaming: a narrative review

Compromised time control is a variable of interest among disordered gamers because time spent on videogames can directly affect individuals’ lives. Although time perception appears to be closely associated with this phenomenon, previous studies have not systematically found a relationship between time perception and gaming. Therefore, the purpose of this narrative review is to explore how gaming disorder may be associated with time perception. It has been found that gamers exhibit a stronger attentional focus as well as an improved working memory compared with non-gamers. However, gamers (and especially disordered gamers) exhibit a stronger reaction to gaming cues which—coupled with an altered emotion regulation observed among disordered gamers—could directly affect their time perception. Finally, “'flow states”' direct most of the attentional resources to the ongoing activity, leading to a lack of resources allocated to the time perception. Therefore, entering a flow state will result in an altered time perception, most likely an underestimation of duration. The paper concludes that the time loss effect observed among disordered gamers can be explained via enhanced emotional reactivity (facilitated by impaired emotion regulation)

Neurobiological correlates of avatar identification processing and emotional inhibitory control in internet gaming disorder

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is the most prevalent subcategory of internet addiction. It has been associated with self-concept deficits and related characteristics such as emotional as well as social competence deficits, increased social anxiety and a stronger identification with the own avatar (i.e. a graphical agent that often seems to be constructed according to gamers’ ideal). In addition, IGD seems to be linked with inhibitory control deficits, definable as impairments in the inhibition of reactions to irrelevant stimuli during the pursuit of cognitively represented goals. However, the neurobiological correlates of avatar compared to self and ideal-related identification processing as well as emotional inhibitory control in (socially) anxious contexts as potentially important factors in IGD development have not been explored yet. The brain region of the left angular gyrus (AG) has been associated with self-identification from a third-person perspective in healthy controls and showed avatar-related hyperactivation in long-term online gamers during a task on self and avatar reflection in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) seems to be involved in the integration of negative affect and cognitive control. Based on these observations, internet gaming addicts were neurobiologically examined by means of fMRI with a focus on the left AG as well as the dACC while completing specific tasks and compared to non-addicted controls as well as social media addicts. Hereby, participants’ concepts of self, ideal and avatar were assessed with a reflection task asking for the evaluation of characteristics regarding the self, ideal and own avatar. Emotional inhibitory control in a socially anxious context was neurobiologically explored by means of an emotional Stroop task (EST) assessing the inhibition on socially anxious words compared to positive, negative and neutral word stimuli under parallel reaction time recording. In addition, the emotional inhibitory control at anxious stimuli was examined neuropsychologically by means of an affective Go/No-Go task (AGN). Besides, psychometric questionnaires assessing impulsivity, emotional competence and social anxiety were applied. Internet gaming addicts showed significantly higher levels of impulsivity, social anxiety and emotional competence deficits relative to non-addicted controls in psychometric measures. Neurobiologically, internet gaming addicts exhibited left AG hyperactivations during the reflection on their own avatar relative to self and ideal reflection within their group as well as compared to non-addicted controls. In the EST, internet gaming addicts had longer reaction times during the inhibition on socially anxious compared to positive and negative words as well as compared to positive, negative and neutral words together. During the latter comparison, internet gaming addicts neurobiologically showed significant hypoactivations in the left middle and superior temporal gyrus (MTG and STG), which was also significantly lower relative to social media addicts. Functional alterations in the dACC were not observed. Neuropsychologically, no significant differences in emotional inhibitory control at anxious stimuli between internet gaming addicts and non-addicted controls were detected by means of the AGN. In summary, the virtually concretized avatar might replace the rather abstract ideal in IGD as a construct to identify with. The need for such a construct might arise from the urge to compensate dissatisfaction with the own person as a facet of self-concept deficits. The MTG and STG have previously been associated with the retrieval of words or expressions during communication, social perception and emotion regulation (based on a study in social anxiety disorder). The present finding of these regions’ hypoactivation in relation to socially anxious stimuli might indicate that 1) socially anxious words are less retrievable from the semantic storage of internet gaming addicts than positive, negative or neutral words, 2) in IGD, emotional inhibitory control in the socially anxious context is represented by brain regions involved in the processing of social information (such as the MTG and STG) and that 3) internet gaming addicts have deficiencies in the cognitive regulation of emotions as well as in the processing of social information, with the MTG and STG hypoactivation during socially anxious word blocks possibly serving as a neurobiological correlate of IGD-related social and emotional competence deficits as facets of self-concept impairments

The time loss effect in gaming: an exploration of gamers' time perception from a dual-process perspective

Gaming Disorder has been included in the 11th revision of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases as a recurrent gaming behaviour with a lack of control from the gamer. One important aspect of gaming disorder, and gaming in general, is the time loss effect which can be defined as the underestimation of the time spent on an activity (i.e., gaming in this case). Since this process may lead the gamers to experience multiple negative consequences (e.g., conflicts with education and occupation, relationship problems, etc.) due to the increased time spent on videogames, the main objective of this thesis was to explore a potential underlying mechanism of time loss: time perception. This thesis contributed to knowledge by (i) systematically reviewing the variables commonly associated with both gaming (i.e., healthy and disordered) and time perception, allowing a deeper understanding of these two variables’ interaction; (ii) testing the Dual-Process Contingency Model of time perception within durations above one minute; (iii) testing both the prospective and retrospective time perception of the gamers in comparison to non-gamers in a neutral setting; and (iv) testing how emotion and cognition affect the gamers’ retrospective time perception. The new primary data from this thesis were collected using quantitative approaches, utilizing both experimental (i.e., computer tasks) and psychometric (i.e., online survey) data collection. These data from three experimental studies and one psychometric study were analysed through multiple types of analysis such as ANOVAs, regressions, or general linear models. The results first indicated that the Dual-Process Contingency Model of time perception, unifying RTP and PTP, was not valid for longer time durations. Second, the results showed that the gamers exhibited a better PTP (but a similar RTP) than non-gamers when estimating time in a neutral setting. However, the gamers underestimated time when processing gaming pictures, this effect being stronger when the task to complete was more complicated. In conclusion, it appears from the studies carried out that the reason underlying the observed time loss effect experienced by gamers was impaired retrospective time perception occurring when aroused by gaming stimuli

Analysis of Assessment and Hemodynamic Activation in the Prefrontal Cortex: An Investigation of Executive Function

Executive function (EF) refers to the group of cognitive processes that guide human behavior. EF dysfunction is characteristic of a number of clinical conditions such as ADHD. Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an economical and less invasive means to image the cortex during tasks of EF to visualize cognitive processes. Measuring hemodynamics in those with and without ADHD during EF tasks, and comparing hemodynamics, EF performance and ratings of EF in daily functioning can yield additional insight into the functional relationship of the cortex and behavior. This study utilized the EXecutive Abilities: Measures and Instruments for Neurobehavioral Evaluation and Research (EXAMINER), Trail Making Test (TMT), Twenty Questions (20Q) task from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (DKEFS), and the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult (BRIEF-A) Behavior Regulation Index (BRI) and Metacognition Index (MCI). NIRS data was collected during the EF performance tasks and results were calculated based on average hemodynamic responses. Additional questions were addressed regarding the association of EF ratings to EF performance, whether there was an association between digital and non-digital EF tasks, and whether performance differed between those with and without ADHD in terms of hemodynamics and performance or only performance variables. A moderate association was found between BRI and decreased oxygenated hemoglobin (oxyHb) in the left DLPFC during Set Shifting. Higher MCI was moderately associated with decreased oxyHb in the left DLPFC during a task of inhibition and sustained attention, and improved performance on N-Back was moderately associated with increased oxyHb in bilateral DLPFC during Set Shifting. No statistically significant differences were found between ADHD and Non-ADHD groups in PFC hemodynamics during EF tasks; however, ADHD participants exhibited greater impairment on ratings of EF. No statistically significant associations between digital and non-digital tasks were found. Findings confirm deficits in everyday EF in those with ADHD; however, continued use of digital tasks to assess EF constructs, and use of those results for diagnostic purposes is not consistently supported in the literature. Additional information regarding use of EF tasks in those with and without ADHD may provide additional insight into the connection between neurophysiology and everyday function