Jussi Palomäki

Brain oscillatory 4-35 Hz EEG responses during an n-back task with complex visual stimuli

Brain oscillatory responses of 4-35 Hz EEG frequencies elicited during performance of a visual n-back task with complex visual stimuli were assessed in 20 adult volunteers. Spectral power changes were assessed separately for target and non-target stimuli in four different memory load conditions (0, 1, 2, and 3-back). The presentation of both target and non-target stimuli elicited long-lasting ~4-8 Hz power increases, which were more prominent at the beginning of stimulus onset during presentation of target stimuli, as compared to non-target stimuli, in the 0-back memory load condition. ~8-25 Hz power decreases appeared at stimulus onset. These power decreases were more prominent during the presentation of target stimuli, as compared to non-target stimuli, and their duration increased as a function of memory load between the 0-, 1-, and 2-back, but not the 3-back, memory load conditions. The current results provide further evidence in support of the notion of a complex interplay between both ~4-8 Hz power increases and ~8-25 Hz power decreases during cognitive memory task performance.

Zone out and your money flows away; go with the flow and your money might stay

in her 2012 book “addiction by design: machine gambling in las Vegas”, cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow schüll drew attention to a pervasive phenomenon in gambling addiction called “the Zone”: a state of dissociation in which long-term machine gamblers feel “one with the machine” and disconnected from the worries of their daily lives. To them, being in the Zone is both calming and deliberating. Playing is no longer about the thrill of the win (which it might have been in the past), but about maximizing time on machine and in the Zone – sometimes to the point of barely eating, urinating or sleeping for days, isolated from social contacts. according to schüll, what typically dispels the Zone is either no longer having access to money, or an overwhelming urge to go relieve oneself. at this point, when the deliberating calm of the Zone is gone, players feel sadness, guilt, shame and disappointment. staying in the Zone steadily corrodes their finances and social life, and is at the heart of gambling addiction for many machine gambling regulars. The Zone is comparable to a phenomenon known in positive psychology as “flow”, which has been studied extensively for many decades, most notably by psychologist mihály csíkszentmihályi (1990). Flow is a state of complete involvement in an activity for its own sake: The sense of self is attenuated, sense of time is distorted, and the person feels challenged and skilled. The enjoyable and engaging state of flow can be experienced in virtually any activity from surfing to playing chess. however, experiencing flow can also have adverse consequences, as noted by csíkszentmihályi (1990, p. 62):

To Bluff like a Man or Fold like a Girl? - Gender Biased Deceptive Behavior in Online Poker.

Evolutionary psychology suggests that men are more likely than women to deceive to bolster their status and influence. Also gender perception influences deceptive behavior, which is linked to pervasive gender stereotypes: women are typically viewed as weaker and more gullible than men. We assessed bluffing in an online experiment (N = 502), where participants made decisions to bluff or not in simulated poker tasks against opponents represented by avatars. Participants bluffed on average 6% more frequently at poker tables with female-only avatars than at tables with male-only or gender mixed avatars—a highly significant effect in games involving repeated decisions. Nonetheless, participants did not believe the avatar genders affected their decisions. Males bluffed 13% more frequently than females. Unlike most economic games employed exclusively in research contexts, online poker is played for money by tens of millions of people worldwide. Thus, gender effects in bluffing have significant monetary consequences for poker players.

Experience and Passion in Poker: Are There Well-Being Implications?

Previous studies on gambling passion have identified that obsessive passion is related to negative consequences, including gambling pathology, whereas harmonious passion is mostly related to positive outcomes both during and after engagement in gambling activity. In the present study, we focused on poker players (N = 311) and investigated the associations between the two types of gambling passion and subjective well-being, while taking into account acquired poker experience. We found that harmonious passion toward poker was associated with higher levels of well-being, whereas the reverse was true for obsessive passion. Poker experience was positively related to harmonious but not obsessive passion, and moderated the relationship between harmonious passion and quality of life. Our findings contribute to extant literature on passion and further solidify its application in a gambling context. Most importantly, our results underline the relevance of accounting for poker experience when studying gambling among poker players.

The dark triad and willingness to commit insurance fraud

Abstract We evaluated how the dark triad (DT) personality traits (Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, Narcissism) influence willingness to claim for insurance in an online setting. In two mTurk studies (Ns 344 and 699) we created realistic online insurance claim tasks where participants could file claims for insured household items they had supposedly broken. We predicted “fibbing” (i.e., overclaiming the item values) in these tasks using the DT traits. However, within Study 2, we included monetary incentives and situational factors relating to claiming—that is, whether the items were broken in anger, while drunk, or by sheer accident. In both studies all DT traits predicted fibbing, but the results were weak for psychopathy in Study 1, while in Study 2 psychopathy was the strongest individual predictor of fibbing. Our results help understand why certain people are willing to commit insurance fraud, and provide an opening for further interdisciplinary research on insurance and personality science.