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Among both youth and adults, video gaming is a rapidly growing recreational activity. The American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization have identified problematic video gaming behavior as a clinical concern in need of further research and have conceptualized this condition as a behavioral addiction. Empirically validated assessment tools may aid in case conceptualization, and cognitive-behavioral techniques have accrued some evidence supporting their efficacy when targeting internet gaming disorder. Clinicians should consider employing goal setting, behavior tracking, and functional analyses, and should consider increasing alternative pleasurable activities, incentivizing specific behavior changes, and integrating caregivers into treatment when working with adolescents.

Certain substance use disorders, such as nicotine, opioid, and alcohol use disorders, have efficacious pharmacotherapies (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2014). Medications for these disorders largely target neurotransmitter systems affected by the substance of abuse. Behavioral addictions, in contrast, do not involve ingestion of any substance, and their neurophysiology remains elusive. To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any medication to treat a behavioral addiction. However, initial experimental trials of medications for gambling disorder and other putative behavioral addictions have been conducted. In this chapter, we review research on pharmacotherapy for gambling disorder, Internet gaming disorder, and Internet addiction. We also briefly discuss treatments for other potential behavioral addictions (e.g., shopping, eating), although much less data exist on these conditions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

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abstract: Fractal analyses examine variability in a time series to look for temporal structure or pattern that reveals the underlying processes of a complex system. Although fractal property has been found in many signals in biological systems, how it relates to behavioral performance and what it implies about the complex system under scrutiny are still open questions. In this series of experiments, fractal property, movement kinematics, and behavioral performance were measured on participants performing a reciprocal tapping task. In Experiment 1, the results indicated that the alpha value from detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) reflected deteriorating performance when visual feedback delay was introduced into the reciprocal tapping task. This finding suggests that this fractal index is sensitive to performance level in a movement task. In Experiment 2, the sensitivity of DFA alpha to the coupling strength between sub-processes within a system was examined by manipulation of task space visibility. The results showed that DFA alpha was not influenced by disruption of subsystems coupling strength. In Experiment 3, the sensitivity of DFA alpha to the level of adaptivity in a system under constraints was examined. Manipulation of the level of adaptivity was not successful, leading to inconclusive results to this question. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2019

Bilingual language control refers to how bilinguals are able to speak exclusively in one language without the unintended language intruding. Two prominent verbal theories of bilingual language control have been proposed by researchers: the inhibitory control model (ICM) and the lexical selection mechanism model (LSM). The ICM posits that domain-general inhibition is employed in order to suppress the unintended language’s activation. The LSM posits that inhibition is not used; rather a lexical selection mechanism targets only the intended language’s words. In order to better test the theories’ hypotheses, I developed computational models to estimate participants’ reaction times when naming in blocks of semantically related pictures and in blocks of semantically unrelated pictures. For these tasks, the ICM model predicts that semantic interference will be abolished when bilinguals switch languages, while the LSM model does not. In Experiment One, English-Spanish bilinguals named pictures that were either semantically related to the previous four trials, or semantically unrelated to the previous four trials. Research indicated that language switching did not abolish priming effects, supporting the ICM. These results contradict conclusions found in previous literature. To reconcile this, another experiment was conducted. It was similar to Experiment One, except filler trials separated semantically related trials. Results showed that each time a semantically related neighbor was presented, naming latency increased by ~10ms regardless of language switching or number of filler items. It suggests that the existing literature mistook incremental learning effects as priming effects, and it demonstrates a need to incorporate theories of incremental learning into theories of bilingual language control.

A large body of research relates families’ socioeconomic status (SES) to child language development (Hoff & Tian, 2005). Results from these studies indicate preschoolers from low SES backgrounds may have underdeveloped linguistic foundations required for future academic success (Sirin, 2005; Lacouri & Tissington, 2011). These differences have been said to create a 30 million word-gap between the language experiences of low and middle to high SES children by the age of 3 years. Thus, children who come from lower SES backgrounds often lack the vocabulary knowledge used in school and in textbooks (Hart & Risley, 1995). One index of SES is parental level of education, specifically maternal education (Hoff & Tien, 2005). The current study compared the language processes related to word knowledge of 17 preschoolers who live in lower maternal education attainment (LEA) homes and 17 preschoolers who live in higher maternal education attainment (HEA) homes. An event related potential (ERP) thought to index semantic congruity and comprehension monitoring, the N400, was used. Preschoolers listened to nouns and verbs presented aurally that matched or mismatched with pictures to understand how preschoolers from varying SES backgrounds process linguistic stimuli. Additionally, participants completed an Auditory Oddball Paradigm, or tone judgment task, to evaluate how preschoolers categorized and judged non-linguistic stimuli (e.g., standard and target pure tones). Tone judgment results revealed a Group x region midline interaction, indicating that the groups may recruit different neural resources to judge tones. The noun picture task results indicated that the HEA group processed familiar object labels more robustly and quicker than the LEA group. N400 results did not differ for the verb picture task. These results may indicate that both groups require more neural resources to process action labels and that perhaps verbs represent a higher level of linguistic complexity for young children. These results provide preliminary evidence of neural linguistic processing differences between preschoolers from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. Because of the lack of minimal differences on associated behavioral measures of language, one may speculate that ERP underpinnings as exemplified in the current study may hold promise for identifying subtle underlying differences in the processing of language among preschoolers