Increased oscillatory theta activation evoked by violent digital game events

doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2008.02.009

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 435, Issue 1, 11 April 2008, Pages 69-72

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2008.02.009 Get rights and content

Abstract

The authors examined electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillatory responses to two violent events, the player character wounding and killing an opponent character with a gun, in the digital game James Bond 007: NightFire. EEG was recorded from 25 (16 male) right-handed healthy young adults. EEG data were segmented into one 1-s baseline epoch before each event and two 1-s epochs after event onset. Power estimates (μV²) were derived with the fast Fourier transform (FFT) for each artefact free event. Both of the studied events evoked increased occipital theta (4–6 Hz) responses as compared to the pre-event baseline. The wounding event evoked also increased occipital high theta (6–8 Hz) response and the killing event evoked low alpha (8–10 Hz) asymmetry over the central electrodes, both relative to the pre-event baseline. The results are discussed in light of facial electromyographic and electrodermal activity responses evoked by these same events, and it is suggested that the reported EEG responses may be attributable to affective processes related to these violent game events.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the European Community, NEST project “The fun of gaming: Measuring the human experience of media enjoyment” (NEST-28765).

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Increased oscillatory theta activation evoked by violent digital game events

Abstract

Section snippets

Acknowledgements

Int J. Psychophysiol.

Biol. Psychol.

Electroenceph. clin. Neurophysiol.

Int. J. Psychophysiol.

Neurosci. Lett.

Electroenceph. clin. Neurophysiol.

Int. J. Psychophysiol.

Electroenceph. clin. Neurophysiol.

Cogn. Brain Res.