Program & Abstract Book - EPFL Latsis Symposium 2009

EPFL Latsis Symposium 2009: Understanding Violence
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February 11-13 2009
on t h e n e u r a l p r o c e s s i n g o f v i o l e n t a n D
n o n -v i o l e n t c o m p u t e r g a m e s c e n a r i o s in
g a m e r s a n D n o n -g a m e r s
Fehr, Thorsten 1 ; Regenbogen, Christina 2 ; Herrmann, Manfred
1
1 Center for Cognitive Sciences, Dept. Of Neuropsychology/Behavioral
Neurobiology, Center for Advanced Imaging Bremen/Magdeburg,
Bremen University, Germany; 2 Center for Cognitive Sciences,
Dept. Of Neuropsychology/Behavioral Neurobiology, Bremen
University, Dept. of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen
University, Germany
There is a large public and scientific discussion about the effects of violent
video games on behaviour-related aspects such as arousal, emotion, and
cognition. The ability to differentiate between reality and fiction has been
discussed to be reduced in individuals who intensively use media particularly
displaying violent content. In the present fMRI study violent computer
game scenarios and an analogous parallel form of video sequences
displaying real characters were presented to a group of 22 young males
with (gamers) and without (non-gamers) history of long-term violent
video game experience. A comparison between violent and non-violent
scenarios suggested large differences in activation patterns between gamers
and non-gamers as well as between the processing of the virtual and
the real scenarios. A lack of sub-cortical network activation, as identified
in both group- and single-individual analyses, indicated a rather ‘cold’ and
neocortical represented and less arousal driven form of emotional processing
of both virtual and real violent scenarios in both groups. This might
indicate a general desensitisation-to-violence-effect in both gamers and
non-gamers, potentially caused by predominantly miss-attributed and perverted
forms of any kind of violence in all public media always present and
chronically available for everyone. Additionally, large individual differences
point to the necessity to particularly consider individual learning histories
and developmental factors. Taken together, the present data do not support
the view that gamers are impaired in differentially processing virtual
and real contextual information, even after a long learning history of computer
game play.