Those exposed to gaming addiction showed poor memory

Exciting effects of video gaming habits on cognitive health.. Science reveals

Video games raise widespread controversy about their potential harms and benefits. A recent study reveals that cognitive difficulties are linked to gaming habits, not the act of playing itself. While individuals at risk of gaming addiction show poor memory, those who play recreationally may show enhanced concentration, according to a report published by PsyPost, citing the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Cases of "gaming disorder"

The World Health Organization officially recognizes gaming disorder as a medical condition. This diagnosis describes a persistent inability to control gaming habits. For individuals with this condition, video games become a priority over daily activities, despite their negative consequences on their lives.

Psychologists often study behavioral addictions through a dual-system framework, which suggests that human behavior chooses between a goal-directed system and a habitual system. A goal-oriented system involves conscious planning and mental flexibility. The habitual system relies on automatic responses that often persist even when they conflict with the person's goals.

Executive functions are the mental tools that support the goal-directed system. These functions enable individuals to retain information in their minds, navigate tasks, and curb impulsive impulses. On the other hand, there is implicit sequence learning, which is an automatic process in which the brain unconsciously extracts patterns from the environment.

Lead researcher Kristina Berta and her colleagues at Eötvos Loránd University in Hungary wanted to determine how these two cognitive systems work in different types of players. They aimed to identify the mental mechanisms that separate healthy recreational gaming from addictive behavior. To achieve this, the team designed an experiment to test both executive functions and automatic habit learning.

Expressiveness

Deterioration of working memory

During the study, individuals at risk for gaming disorder showed worse performance on basic working memory tasks compared to non-gamers and recreational gamers. They had difficulty storing and recalling strings of numbers and shapes.

While the at-risk group showed normal overall performance on the memory updating task, they made errors indicating increased impulsivity and possible lack of behavioral control. In contrast, recreational gamers showed signs of improved mental readiness and heightened attention uniquely linked to healthy gaming habits.

Conscious control and automatic habits

The study also examined the relationship between conscious control and automatic habits. The results showed an inverse relationship between inhibitory control and habit learning. When the brain exerts less conscious effort, automatic habits, as expected, have a greater influence on behavior.

It also discovered an unexpected positive relationship between basic working memory and habit learning in non-gamers and individuals at risk of addiction. The researchers suggest that people in these two groups may be using their working memory capacity to compensate for other cognitive gaps while performing automatic tasks. In contrast, recreational players did not show this correlation.

Loss of control over identity

Overall, research highlights that routinely playing video games is not inherently detrimental to higher-order thinking. Cognitive difficulties appear selectively in individuals who have lost control of their hobby. By understanding these mental schemas, psychologists can design better interventions tailored to those suffering from behavioral addiction.