Wang Xiaoyu, Yang Jingyi, He Jinbo
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Wuhan, 430079, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China; School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China.
J Psychiatr Res. 2025 May 23;189:244-251. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.05.041.
Individuals with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) exhibit behaviors of immersion in game social interactions and detachment from real-life social interactions. Social Motivation Theory posits that social rewards incentivize social activities, while impairments in social reward processing may lead to such behaviors. Moreover, attentional bias plays a crucial role in reward processing. However, no studies have examined attentional bias toward social rewards in individuals with IGD. Therefore, this study utilized a dot-probe paradigm to compare attentional bias toward game-related social rewards (GR) and real-life social rewards (RR) between 30 individuals with IGD and 31 healthy controls (HC) and further explored attentional vigilance (early-stage) and disengagement difficulties/avoidance (later-stage). The results indicated that (1) individuals with IGD exhibited higher attentional bias toward GR than RR. (2) Attentional bias in individuals with IGD occurred in later stages, characterized by attentional disengagement difficulties for GR and attentional avoidance for RR. (3) The degree of attentional disengagement difficulties for GR and attentional avoidance for RR in individuals with IGD was positively correlated with the severity of IGD. The results suggest that immersion in gaming social interactions and disconnection from real-life social interactions in individuals with IGD may be related to difficulties in disengaging from GR and avoiding RR in later stages of attentional bias. This study reveals the mechanisms underlying the different patterns of social activities of individuals with IGD in both gaming and real-life contexts from the perspective of attentional bias toward social rewards.
患有网络游戏障碍（IGD）的个体表现出沉浸于游戏社交互动以及脱离现实生活社交互动的行为。社会动机理论认为，社会奖励激励社会活动，而社会奖励处理方面的损害可能导致此类行为。此外，注意偏向在奖励处理中起关键作用。然而，尚无研究考察IGD个体对社会奖励的注意偏向。因此，本研究采用点探测范式，比较30名IGD个体和31名健康对照（HC）对与游戏相关的社会奖励（GR）和现实生活社会奖励（RR）的注意偏向，并进一步探讨注意警觉（早期阶段）和脱离困难/回避（后期阶段）。结果表明：（1）IGD个体对GR的注意偏向高于RR。（2）IGD个体的注意偏向发生在后期阶段，其特征是对GR存在注意脱离困难，对RR存在注意回避。（3）IGD个体对GR的注意脱离困难程度和对RR的注意回避程度与IGD的严重程度呈正相关。结果表明，IGD个体沉浸于游戏社交互动以及与现实生活社交互动脱节，可能与注意偏向后期阶段难以脱离GR和回避RR有关。本研究从对社会奖励的注意偏向角度揭示了IGD个体在游戏和现实生活情境中不同社交活动模式的潜在机制。
