Full of Sound and Fury,Signifying Something: The Impact of Autonomic Arousal on EGM Gambling

An experiment was conducted to observe the influence of autonomic arousal on subsequent gambling behavior. Thirty-seven male and 32 female regular Electronic Gaming Machine (EGM) players were recruited through newspaper advertisements. Participants were randomly assigned to either: (1) a control condition, or (2) an experimental condition that introduced a loud white-noise event (80 db) at fixed 120 s intervals throughout the 5-min EGM gambling session. Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) measurements showed that the manipulation was successful in elevating autonomic arousal. The results showed differences in behavioral response to the manipulation based on prior experience with gambling problems. Persons with many gambling problems had lower average bet-sizes in the white-noise condition compared to the control, while those with few or no problems had higher average bet-sizes. The results suggest that arousal may provide different signals to gamblers with few versus many problems. Gamblers with many problems may interpret their arousal as a sign that they will soon lose money, while gamblers with few or no problems may associate feelings of arousal exclusively with winning.     

An Experiment on the Social Facilitation of Gambling Behavior

Research and theory regarding the social facilitation effect generates the expectation that the presence of other gamblers (or co-actors) in a gaming venue is likely to intensify individual gambling behavior and magnify losses. Fifty male and 66 female participants (116 total) played a computer-simulated electronic gaming machine with a fixed winning sequence, followed by an indefinite losing sequence. Measures of the intensity of gambling behavior included the final payout (a direct measure of losses), average bet-size, number of trials played, and the speed of play. Some participants received false feedback from the computer designed to suggest that other gamers in adjacent rooms were playing and sometimes winning at the same game. Persons who received both sight and sound information, including winning bells and instant messages regarding the wins of other (fake) players, placed more bets and lost more money compared to the other conditions with less information.     

The Four Es 1-Year Later: A Tool for Predicting the Development of Gambling Problems

The Four Es is a 40-item scale measuring psychological risk for the development of problem gambling behavior. One-year follow-up interviews (n = 395) from a previously reported phone survey in Queensland, Australia (n = 2,577) (Rockloff & Dyer, 2006) tested the ability of the Four Es instrument to prospectively identify persons who would later develop gambling problems. Two groups of participants were selected for the 1-year follow-up interviews, including (1) persons who had gambling problems, high-risk alcohol abuse problems, and/or substance abuse problems (abuse group); and (2) a random selection of other persons from the original survey (random group). The results indicated that the “Excess” trait, which measures impulsive behavior, was predictive of relative increases in gambling problems for both groups over the 1-year period. Additionally, the Four Es questionnaire showed good psychometric properties in the surveys, with a test-retest reliability of r = .70 and a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of α = .90 and .92 in the original and follow-up interviews, respectively.     

Capturing touch in parent–infant interaction: A comparison of methods

Naturally occurring high levels of caregiver touch promote offspring development in many animal species. Yet, caregiver touch remains a relatively understudied topic in human development, possibly due to challenges of measuring this means of interaction. While parental reports (e.g., questionnaires, diaries) are easy to collect, they may be subject to biases and memory limitations. In contrast, observing touch in a short session of parent–child interaction in the lab may not be representative of touch interaction in daily life. In the present study, we compared parent reports (one-off questionnaires and diary) and observation-based methods in a sample of German 6- to 13-month-olds and their primary caregivers (n = 71). In an attempt to characterize touching behaviors across a broad range of contexts, we measured touch both during play and while the parent was engaged in another activity. We found that context affected both the quantity and types of touch used in interaction. Parent-reported touch was moderately associated with touch observed in parent–child interactions and more strongly with touch used during play. We conclude that brief one-off questionnaires are a good indicator of touch in parent–child interaction, yet they may be biased toward representing particular daily activities and particular types of touch.     

A stepwise discrete variable selection procedure

A stepwise variable selection procedure for multinomial discrimination is presented and discussed. Based upon the work of Kullback and Hills, stopping rules are proposed and illustrated for a set of data on communication buyer behavior.     

Exact likelihood ratio and score confidence intervals for the binomial proportion

Many methods are available for computing a confidence interval for the binomial parameter, and these methods differ in their operating characteristics. It has been suggested in the literature that the use of the exact likelihood ratio (LR) confidence interval for the binomial proportion should be considered. This paper provides an evaluation of the operating characteristics of the two‐sided exact LR and exact score confidence intervals for the binomial proportion and compares these results to those for three other methods that also strictly maintain nominal coverage: Clopper‐Pearson, Blaker, and Casella. In addition, the operating characteristics of the two‐sided exact LR method and exact score method are compared with those of the corresponding asymptotic methods to investigate the adequacy of the asymptotic approximation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.