Effect of internet gaming disorder on identifying emotional faces
LI Xiang1, MENG Chunliu2, CHEN Shujuan3, CHEN Gongxiang4
1. College of Health Sciences, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan 250355, Shandong Province, China; 2. Department of Education, Sichuan Sanhe Vocational College, Luzhou 646200, Sichuan Province, China; 3. School of Education, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China; 4. School of Education and Psychological Sciences, Jinan University, Jinan 250024, Shandong Province, China
Abstract：Objective To explore the effects of internet gaming disorder on emotional face valence and intensity recognition. Methods An emotional face recognition paradigm was used to examine whether there was emotional face recognition bias in internet gaming disorder individuals from standard emotion recognition and micro-expression recognition, respectively. For experiment 1 , the differences between internet gaming disorder subjects and non-internet gaming disorder subjects in recognizing different emotional valences were compared by using emotional face valence recognition paradigm. For the experiment 2 , the differences between the two groups under different emotional intensities were compared by using emotional face intensity recognition paradigm. Results The reaction time of the subjects for recognizing positive emotions was significantly shorter than those for recognizing neutral and negative emotions, and the correct rates for recognizing positive and negative emotions were significantly higher than those for neutral emotions. As the intensity of the emotions changed, the subjects still showed a preference for recognizing positive emotions. The internet gaming disorder subjects had a higher accuracy in recognizing positive emotions compared to non-internet gaming disorder subjects. Conclusion Internet gaming disorder individuals do not show significant impairments in recognizing standard emotional stimuli, but the individuals show a stronger bias toward reward-seeking stimuli in recognizing micro-expressions.
