From pixels to choices: Understanding the influence of video games on decision-making skills

Abstract

In recent years, the influence of the use of video games on cognition has been studied. However, there is no agreement on the way in which they affect processes such as decision making. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to study the impact of habitual video game use on decision making from a somatic marker perspective. For this study, a total of 46 healthy participants were recruited and grouped according to their frequency of video game use: Frequent Gamers Group (FG; n = 20) and Non-Gamers Group (NG; n = 26). The decision-making from the somatic marker perspective was assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task paradigm. Total task performance (TTP), decisions under conditions of ambiguity (DCA) and decisions under risk conditions (DRC) were analyzed using Student's t-test for independent samples. After analyzing the results, it was observed that the FG group performed significantly better in the TTP and DCA variables compared to the NG group. The results could be reflecting how the habitual use of video games could be influencing the ability to make decisions. Hence, this seems to be produced by the anticipated establishment of the somatic marker under ambiguity conditions, which favors more advantageous decisions in general.