Lyons, Charles A.

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St. Cloud State University

Analysis of Gambling Behavior Volume 2 Article 11 2008 Commentary - Seeming To Gamble: Commentary on Fantino And Stolarz-Fantino's "Gambling: Sometimes Unseemingly; Not What It Seems" Charles A. Lyons Eastern Oregon University, clyons@eou.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/agb Recommended Citation Lyons, Charles A. (2008) "Commentary - Seeming To Gamble: Commentary on Fantino And Stolarz-Fantino's "Gambling: Sometimes Unseemingly; Not What It Seems"," Analysis of Gambling Behavior: Vol. 2 , Article 11. Available at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/agb/vol2/iss2/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by theRepository at St. Cloud State. It has been accepted for inclusion in Analysis of Gambling Behavior by an authorized editor of theRepository at St. Cloud State. For more information, please contact tdsteman@stcloudstate.edu. Analysis of Gambling Behavior 2008, 2, 101-102 Number 2 (Winter 2008) 101  COMMENTARY  SEEMING TO GAMBLE: COMMENTARY ON FANTINO AND  STOLARZ-FANTINO’S “GAMBLING: SOMETIMES UNSEEMLY; NOT WHAT IT SEEMS”  Charles A. Lyons Eastern Oregon University ____________________  Those interested in analyzing the field of activities and contexts that comprise gambling will welcome the assessment of Fantino and Stolarz-Fantino.  Their recognition that beha-vior analysts are uniquely prepared to contri-bute to our understanding of gambling, and by extension to other sorts of “addictive” disord-ers as well, echoes what the researchers and theorists involved in this journal have been proclaiming for more than a decade. The add-ed voices of Fantino and Stolarz-Fantino will certainly improve on our efforts to dissemi-nate that message. I suspect that we all agree about the im-portance of understanding the basic processes and variables involved. As Fantino and Sto-larz-Fantino note in their discussion of the sunk-cost effect, the salience of contingencies is central to the initiation and persistence of gambling. By design, gambling teaches play-ers to tolerate loss. A history of intermittent reinforcement undoubtedly contributes to per-sistence in betting, as does the conditioned reinforcing effect of the “near miss” (in which losing in certain ways actually strengthens rather than weakens play).  One task we face is to make our analyses as relevant for the larger scientific community as those of our more physiologically-oriented colleagues.  A __________ Address Correspondence to: Charles A Lyons Department of Psychology Eastern Oregon University La Grande, Oregon 97850 E-mail: clyons@eou.edu recent assessment of the neural activity trig-gered by near-miss stimuli during slot ma-chine play (Clark, Lawrence, Astley-Jones, & Gray, 2009) is only the latest of a series of papers on the brain correlates of gambling that appeal to the wider interest in neurologi-cal than environmental variables. As we dem-onstrate the practical value of our approach, perhaps behavioral explanations will find a more positive reception. The analysis is also one that, like all self-control issues, concerns discounting of value as a function of time or probability, as well as choice between competing activities. If it is true that the unit of gambling could be de-fined as the string of losses that culminate in a win (Rachlin, 1990), then gambling involves both variable probabilities and variable delays – and there is some reason to think that these have opposite effects on the discounting of rewards (Green, Myerson, & Ostaszewski, 1999). In their analysis, Fantino and Stolarz-Fantino make an interesting and important observation about the form of discount func-tions across different commodities: the steep-est discounting occurs with perishable com-modities that serve a direct metabolic func-tion, with shallower discounting for commod-ities that serve an exchange function (e.g., money). The analysis of discounting among gamblers remains incomplete, the authors note, partly due to questions about the condi-tions under which we get different degrees of discounting.  1Lyons: Commentary - Seeming To Gamble: Commentary on Fantino And StolarzPublished by theRepository at St. Cloud State, 2008102 CHARLES A. LYONS   Among the most important of these con-ditions requiring clarification is debt, which has not yet been adequately modeled in our methods. As an establishing or motivating operation, debt is clearly related to steeper temporal discounting, chasing of losses, and lower risk aversion, but it remains an elusive factor for experimental analysis. We simply cannot allow subjects in our studies to en-counter the significant financial consequences that define actual gambling, let alone patho-logical gambling.  As the authors note, hu-mans are widely held to be risk-averse rather than risk-prone in the “real” world. In the ana-logues of the laboratory, however, subjects cannot (for ethical reasons) incur any net loss or fall into debt, and so there is no meaningful risk to a wager. That is an important problem for any analysis of gambling based on risk aversion and discounted value; what we study in an experiment may only seem like gam-bling. Fortunately, we have clever colleagues and powerful techniques, and progress is be-ing made toward a comprehensive behavioral model. Our experimental analyses should eventually be as strong as our conceptual ana-lyses of gambling.  Fantino and Stolarz-Fantino suggest several areas for future re-search: the salience of gambling contingen-cies, differences between players and non-players, the effects of instructions, and other social, emotional, and verbal influences, all part of the “rich tapestry” of controlling va-riables.  A few more might be specified. Comparisons of different games in terms of “addictive” potential could add to our under-standing. And beyond the analysis of individ-ual wagers, we have yet to turn our attention to the other form of gambling, the one that professionals play. For them, gambling is very much a prediction of what other people will do; the behavior called bluffing plays no part in the analysis of slot machines, video poker, or the Powerball lottery.  In “real” poker, one can win with the worst hand at the table. We have much to do.  REFERENCES Clark, L., Lawrence, A.J., Astley-Jones, F., & Gray, N. (2009). Gambling near-misses enhance motiva-tion to gamble and recruit win-related brain cir-cuitry. Neuron, 61, 481–490. Green, L., Myerson, J., & Ostaswzewski, P. (1999). Amount of reward has opposite effects on the dis-counting of delayed and probabilistic outcomes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25, 418-427. Rachlin, H. (1990). Why do people gamble and keep gambling despite heavy losses? Psychological Science, 1, 294-297.    2Analysis of Gambling Behavior, Vol. 2 [2008], Art. 11https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/agb/vol2/iss2/11

Commentary - Seeming To Gamble: Commentary on Fantino And Stolarz-Fantino\u27s  Gambling: Sometimes Unseemingly; Not What It Seems

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Commentary - Seeming To Gamble: Commentary on Fantino And Stolarz-Fantino\u27s Gambling: Sometimes Unseemingly; Not What It Seems

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