Mark Dickerson1, John Hinchy2, Stephanie Legg England2, John W. Fabre2, Ross B. Cunningham3
1Department of Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, PO Box 555, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia
2Department of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra
3Department of Statistics , Australian National University , Canberra
Tóm tắt
Persistent gambling was studied as a function of the reinforcement of arousal and winning during normal poker machine playing sessions. Play rate, heart rate, winnings, subjective excitement and expectations of winning were recorded for five male and five female high‐frequency players. Autoregressive regression analysis indicated that wins affect play rate for up to three minutes, while effects of the other variables were inconsistent. Markov chain analysis confirmed that wins smaller than 50 credits tend to elevate play rate, while larger wins cause a breakdown in the otherwise very regular rate of play. Results are discussed in relation to the development of impaired control of gambling behaviour.
