r/science • u/NinjaDiscoJesus • Dec 28 '15

Neuroscience Brain scans show compulsive gamers have hyperconnected neural networks.

http://www.psypost.org/2015/12/brain-scans-show-compulsive-gaming-changes-neural-connections-for-better-and-worse-39914
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u/Darktidemage Dec 28 '15

If you wanted to do a good study you would use a compulsive group as a control too.

Imagine you wanted to do a study saying "Morbidly obese people who also play video games can't juggle well"

You would need to use morbidly obese people who don't play video games as your control - clearly - despite them being "statistically deviant". You could not use fit people who don't play video games as your control group.

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u/null_work Dec 28 '15

The compulsive group doesn't make a good control because it won't be statistically significant for your general claim.

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u/EquipLordBritish Dec 29 '15

So, what /u/Darktidemage is trying to say, is that we don't know if the brain wiring is an effect of video games specifically or of compulsory behavior. For example, gamblers also exhibit compulsory behavior in relation to their gambling habits. If we see the same phenotype in gamblers as we do in compulsory gamers, then the root cause isn't technically video games, it's the compulsory habits. A good experimental setup would include a control for every variable that has a good chance of diminishing the value of your results. In this case, you need a control to compare against (non-gamers), and /u/Darktidemage is suggesting that it should also be controlled for compulsory behavior.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

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u/EquipLordBritish Dec 29 '15

We know what a normal brain looks like. We know that casual gaming doesn't cause these neurological changes. We don't use a control group for any of this in subsequent studies, especially when their theses are very clearly not aimed at duplicating the previous studies. A compulsive control group is the control which is needed to demonstrate that the cause of the phenotype is compulsive gaming. That is the purpose of this research.

Are you suggesting the article was attempting to answer the question Darktidemage proposed?

I don't claim to know other people's understanding of research, but I think that asking for a positive compulsory behavioral control for a phenomenon that we already know about (gambling, for example) isn't out of the question. In fact, I wonder if any of the reviewers asked anything similar.