MANIPULATING SLOT MACHINE PREFERENCE IN PROBLEM GAMBLERS THROUGH CONTEXTUAL CONTROL

• Published in: Journal of applied behavior analysis Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 125 - 129
• Main Authors: Nastally, Becky L., Dixon, Mark R., Jackson, James W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2010; Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior; The Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Subjects: Addictive Behavior; Adolescent; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Adults; Behavior; Behavior Control - methods; Biological and medical sciences; Choice Behavior; Context Effect; contextual control; Cues; Data Collection; Female; Gambling; Gambling - psychology; Games; Gaming machines; Humans; Legalized gambling; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Miscellaneous; pathological gambling; Preferences; Pretests Posttests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychomotor Performance; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Recreational Activities; relational frame theory; Research Design; Responses; Selection; slot machine; Stimuli; Studies; Human; Pathological gambling; Choice; Preference; Theory; contextual control; relational frame theory; slot machine; pathological gambling
• ISSN: 0021-8855; 1938-3703
• DOI: 10.1901/jaba.2010.43-125

Pathological and nonpathological gamblers completed a task that assessed preference among 2 concurrently available slot machines. Subsequent assessments of choice were conducted after various attempts to transfer contextual functions associated with irrelevant characteristics of the slot machines. Results indicated that the nonproblem gambling group, but not the problem gambling group, increased their responding toward the slot initially trained as greater than following the initial training procedure, then decreased their responding toward that slot following the reversal phase.