The Episodic Memory In Online Game Addicts

Episodic memory has always been the focus of research in the field of memory and self-awareness.This memory system can integrate and store the specific details of past events in the mind,and then extract them under the condition of self-awareness.At present,the research on episodic memory mainly focuses on the groups such as autism,alzheimer's disease and PTSD,but no research has focused on the group of online game addicts.As one of the most typical and frequent forms of Internet use,making clear the relationship between online game addiction and episodic memory will help enrich the theory of online game addiction and provide an important reference for the prevention and treatment of online game addiction.Therefore,the present study is to explore the episodic memory of online game addicts and investigate the influence of excessive online game use on episodic memory.Therefore,the following three studies were carried out:In the first study,352 college students were recruited by questionnaire.The results showed that:As a typical representative of MOBA game,"Arena of Valors" was the most popular game among college students.The preference of game type showed gender difference.59.93%of college students showed the tendency of Internet addiction.13.35%were online game addicts,which can be divided into mild,moderate and severe addiction with reference to Internet addiction.The proportion of them was 11.65%,1.42%and 0.28%respectively,which were-in the range of global game addiction..In the second study,autobiographical memory interview task was used to investigate the general episodic memory characteristics of online game addicts and the differences between them and non addicts.It was found that compared with the online game addicts,the non addicts number of details of recall events was lower(F(1,18)=15.52,p<0.001),mainly reflected in the number of internal details of recall events.This meant that the episodic memory of online game addicts was impaired.In addition,this study also found that online game addicts' subjective score of activity in recalling positive events was significantly lower than that of non addicts(F(i,19)=4.74,p<0.05),and the importance score was significantly higher than that of non addicts(F(1,18)=5.89,p<0.05).This meant that there was a certain degree of impairment in the recall of positive events,but also shows a positive desire.However,there was no significant difference between two groups in negative events recalled and no negative processing bias was shown,which was inconsistent with the previous research results.This study only revealed the general episodic memory characteristics of online game addicts,but did not clarify the characteristics of episodic memory in different scenarios and whether the damage of episodic memory was specific or holistic.Therefore,further investigation was conducted through study three.In the third study,triple binding task was used to investigate the characteristics of episodic memory of online game addicts in different scenarios and the differences between addicts and non-addicts.The study found:In accuracy results,the two group'effects were not significant.In response time results,there was no difference between the two groups in the game scene.But in the life scene,the response time of the addicts was significantly longer than that of the non addicts(F(1,58)=16.34,p<0.001).Specifically,the addicts' response time of item-recognition,item-space and item-item was significantly longer than non-addicts,while the response time of item-time was not significantly different.This meant that the impairment of episodic memory in online game addicts was specific and there was separation phenomenon.This study comprehensively investigated the characteristics of episodic memory of online game addicts and the consistency of episodic memory in different scenarios,preliminary revealed the characteristics of episodic memory in cyberspace and excessive network game using impact on episodic memory,which lay the foundation for the future research in the field.