Jayne Gackenbach and Johnathan Bown | Grant MacEwan University

Mindfulness andVideo Game Play

AbstractIn the present inquiry two measures of mindfulness were administered to hard core gamers and students on websites and in face to face settings. One measure was structured to inquire about mindfulness in general while the other was structured to inquire about situational mindfulness, i.e. while playing a video game. Game play history was assessed in two ways; a questionnaire asking about the participants’ history and a scale assessing the degree to which subjects felt present in the video game they played before filling out the questionnaires. Finally, a scale assessing a general immersion tendency was included. It was expected and found that presence, immersion and video game play history would be positively associated with each other and to some degree with at least the mindfulness during gaming inventory. Only those who reported that traditionally hard core games (i.e., first person shooter, strategy, and role playing) were their favorite type, were included in a subsequent factor analysis. Five factors emerged. The first factor offers support for the primary hypothesis. That is, the higher the game play history score and the more presence they felt while playing a recent game were associated with a tendency to experience immersion and with two mindfulness subscale scores from the Kentucky Mindfulness scale and with the video game mindfulness scale score.

IntroductionMindfulness is a property of consciousness which is beginning to receive considerable attention from psychologists. It has been described as a non-elaborative, non-judgmental, present-centered awareness where all thoughts and feeling are acknowledged and accepted (Bishop et al., 2004). In a state of mindfulness, attention is regulated such that increased awareness is brought to the current field of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, in addition to being immersed non-judgmentally in the present moment. This state of mind promotes a state of increased psychological acceptance which is the key therapeutic benefit of mindfulness when used to treat problems of anger, stress, or even pain (Tusaie & Kelly, 2009; Wright, Day & Howells, 2009).

Several researchers have also noted an association between scores on mindfulness scales and psychological absorption (Holzel & Ott, 2006; Bear et al, 2004; Brown & Ryan, 2003). The findings are mixed such that with a short mindfulness scale, Brown and Ryan found an inverse relationship to absorption while the other two research groups found a positive relationship between the two constructs when using longer scales designed to examine facets of mindfulness. Perhaps a key difference between the measures used by these groups is that the scale used by Brown and Ryan (the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale or MAAS) assesses individual differences in the frequency of mindful states over time. Whereas the modified Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) used by Baer et al., and the custom scales used by Holzel and Ott, are multifaceted measures which asses overall mindfulness. While the frequency of mindful episodes differs among individuals, so does the intensity – and this is a critically important metric.

The virtual reality (VR) literature uses the term immersion rather than absorption. In order to define immersion, we must first define presence. Presence is simply a dimension which measures the subjective experience of being in a specific place even if one is not physically situated there (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). In this sense, presence is a measure which is well suited for discussing virtual environments. Immersive tendency is the likelihood for an individual to

experience presence (Witmer & Singer, 1998) and this term is typically used in the context of VR. Not surprisingly high end video game players have been found to report more presence and immersion (Persky & Blacovich, 2008; Nowak, Krinar & Farrar, 2006).

While a conceptual line can be drawn from the attention/absorption aspect of mindfulness to gaming a question remains, what about the mental health associations to mindfulness? The stereotype of gamers is that they are aggressive and addicted. While there is literature saying that gaming can lead to aggression (Anderson & Dill, 2000) and addiction (Griffiths & Meredith, 2009), it is simplistic to claim all who game become aggressive and addicted. In fact, there is an emerging body of work showing that gaming has positive mental health consequences. The most often cited work is the enhanced cognitive functions (Boot, Kramer, Simons, Fabiani, & Gratton, 2008). There are psychosocial benefits as well (Durkin & Barber, 2002). Of particular relevance to the present hypothesis is the finding that some forms of gaming may in fact help modulate stress (Russoniello, O’Brien & Parks, 2009), which is also associated with mindfulness.

In this research program, we have been investigating whether video game play may be affecting the consciousness of players. Towards this end, we have found higher lucid dreaming among gamers (Gackenbach, 2006; 2009), more flow (Gackenbach, 2008), more absorption (Gackenbach, 2007), and a single minded focus on gaming (Gackenbach et al, 2009). Furthermore, absorption in various forms seems to be a hallmark of gaming. For instance, high-end gamers report a higher degree of presence (i.e., sense of being there) in virtual environments (Wilfred et al, 2004). Therefore, in an effort to investigate if videogame play is potentially associated with mindful states, we have undertaken the present inquiry.

MethodParticipantsAlmost 400 individuals filled out the surveys. Slightly more than half were women (53%) and about 76% were primarily students under 25 years of age. Participants were recruited online and in-person. Hardcore gamers at Fragapalooza 2008 (a massively multiplayer local area network event in a western Canadian city), online to gamers affiliated with gamer centers, and in face-to-face settings during mass testing sessions compromised the subject pool.

InstrumentsFive questionnaires were administered: Video Game History, Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills, Mindful Attention Awareness during Video Game Play Scale, Immersive Tendency Questionnaire, and Presence Questionnaire. The Video Game History Questionnaire (Gackenbach, 2006) is a 32 item survey which gathers background information about the participants' lifelong involvement with video games. The Presence Questionnaire (Witmer & Singer, 1998) is a 49 item survey designed to gauge how much “in the game" players felt while playing a recent video game.This questionnaire required that participants had played any video game within 24 hours prior to filling it out. It gathered information about which game they played, how long they played, how often they play it, and their own explanation of what the objectives were. The remainder of the questionnaire assessed presence with 7 point Likert scales.

The Immersive Tendency Questionnaire (Witmer & Singer, 1998) is a 29 item survey which measures the participants' general tendency to become immersed in activities. The questionnaire uses a 7 point Likert scale for all questions except two concerning how many books the participants read per month and what book genre they prefer (identified as items 11 and 12 on the factor matrix).

The Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004) is a 39 item measurement which is designed to take a measurement of the participant's general mindfulness throughout the day. The Mindful Attention Awareness during Video Game Play Scale is a 15 item questionnaire adapted for video games. This scale was adjusted from the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) developed by Brown and Ryan (2003). The modifications made to the MAAS were the addition of conditions (i.e. “while playing a video game”) to the statements.

ProcedureSurveys were administered both online and in face-to-face settings. When mounted online it was through surveymethods.com. These surveys were separately available to research participants. Alias names were asked to be provided so that data could be matched across surveys. These were brought to the attention of hard core gamers in several ways. It was made available to about 300 to 600 potential participants at a 3-day local area network (LAN) called Fragapalooza in a western Canadian city. Posters were placed in ten local gaming centers (i.e., New Wave Gaming, EB Games) and research notices were posted online in at gaming websites (i.e., xbox.com, Sony's PS3 page, World of Warcraft forums) and on an online listing of psychology experiments (http://psych.hanover.edu/research).

A Preliminary Inquiry:

Surveys were also administered in face-to-face group sessions at a western Canadian university. All potential participants were informed upon signing up for a testing session that they were to play a video game in the 24-hours prior to reporting for testing. The five scales along with an informed consent sheet were packaged inside an envelope which the administrator distributed to each participant. Participants were instructed that they mustcomplete the surveys in less than one hour. The total package of scales took only about twenty minutes on average. Aliases were used in lieu of names on the surveys and consent sheets were separated from the completed packages in order to maintain anonymity. In all data collection settings, an informed consent was signed or agreed to prior to the presentation of the surveys. Following participation subjects were given a debriefing statement which included contact information for the investigators.

ResultsAs noted earlier, data was collected on these inventories from both face to face and online sources. The online data collection was done through a mass testing effort at a university and also on public gaming sites. Initially 384 subject’s information was merged from these data sources. Subjects who did not provide sufficient video game history information were deleted from subsequent analysis (n=10). The four video game history question responses (frequency of play, length of play session, number games played and age begun gaming, where young is a high score) were converted to Z scores so they could be added and split into thirds to create upper and lower groups with the middle third discarded. That left high (n=124) and low (n=122) end gaming groups. High end

gamers scored higher on each of the defining variables than low end gamers. In all cases high end gamers reported significantly higher amounts of each variable. High end gamers reported on average playing several times a week while lows rarely played. Typical playing sessions were 2 to 4 hours for high ends and less than an hour for lows. Highs said they had played from 50 to over 100 games and that they began playing between kindergarten and grade three whereas lows played one to 5 different games and began in grades 7 to 9.

Once the gamer groups were identified a chi-square analysis was computed on gamer group by sex, and as has most often been the situation when doing research on gamers, it was significant (x2(10=89.497, p<.0001). Low end gamers were made up of 17 males and 106 females while the high end gamer group had 93 males and 34 females. Therefore in all analyses of variance sex of subject was a covariate.

ANCOVA were computed on gamer groups with sex of subject as the covariate for each of the scales of interest. In some cases subscale scores were also used. It should be noted that not all subjects filled out all scales either online or face-to-face. Thus cell sizes vary. These tests are summarized in Table 1.

Because of the number of tests computed, the Holm–Bonferroni method was used to determine if there were any family wise errors (Holm, 1979). In each case the significance remained with high end gamers having higher scores than low end. There was no general mindfulness group differences.

In order to examine this differential finding with mindfulness, high while gaming but no difference in general, participants were broken into three groups based

on their favorite game preference. When the high/low gamer groups were defined by four game use variables, all game preferences were collapsed. In point of fact there are big differences between game genres. Favorite game genre was inquired about and included these responses: First person shooter; Role playing/ Strategy; Driving/Sports; Puzzle/Card/Board and None of the above. While not comprehensive, it did allow an examination of major genre differences. Specifically, the first and second options, First person shooter and Role playing/ Strategy, constitute the typical hard core gamer preferences, while the third grouping is the sporting gamer genre. Finally, the last category, Puzzle/Card/Board, constitutes the classic casual gamer genre. Individuals who listed “None of the above” were excluded from these analyses. The gamer group by game genre Chi Square was significant (X2 (2) = 44.277, p < .0001). For all genres there were both high and low end gamer groups represented if considerably less often for casual games. Low end gamers tended to prefer sport and casual games while high end gamers preferred hard core games. It’s important to keep in mind that while the hard core gamer group had twice as many high end gamers, there were still quite a few of the low end gamers. This could be because these samples were largely in college and may not be able to devote the time to gaming that they did at one point in their lives.

Only 77 people of the 141 who said their favorite games were 1st person shooter, role playing or strategy, i.e. classic hard core gamer genre, were selected for this analysis. This was because they also reported playing a game within 24 hours preceding filling out the questionnaires. A factor analysis on the four general mindfulness subscale scores, the mindfulness in gaming score, immersion sum and subscale scores and presence was computed. The gaming variable used in this analysis was the z-score for which the gamer groups were based upon. This principle component factor analysis is portrayed in Table 2.

It can be seen, when using .3 as a cut-off point, that for this subset of gamers who prefer the classic hard core genre, gaming (as with the ANCOVA’s) was associated with immersion and presence as well as mindfulness during the game. But these variables also loaded positively with the first two subscales of the general mindfulness inventory. While factor 2 shows that the lack of gaming, despite a preference for these types of “hard core” games, was not associated with presence or immersion. It was negatively associated with mindfulness during the game play. However, it was positively associated with three of the mindfulness subscales. The last two factors did not load gaming.

DiscussionWhile presence and immersion have long been discussed as relevant to virtual reality experiences and by extension to video game play (Wilfred et al, 2004), a potentially related concept of mindfulness has not be investigated. Mindfulness conceptualizations originally came from the meditation literature (Bishop et al., 2004). More recently, mindfulness has been often associated with well-being (Hamilton, Kitzman, & Guyotte, 2006; Brown & Ryan, 2003) as is meditation practice (Alexander et al., 1990) and gaming (Russoniello, O’Brien, & Parks, 2009) . Despite the central role of attention and absorption in meditation (Holzel & Ott, 2006), there is mixed evidence of the relationship between mindfulness measures and psychological absorption (Holzel & Ott, 2006; Bear et al, 2004; Brown & Ryan, 2003). It is that key feature of mindfulness which drives the focus of this inquiry. That is, we hypothesized, based in part on the notion that gaming can be a type of meditative practice (Gackenbach, 2008), that due to the absorption needed in meditation, and thus present in some formulations of mindfulness, we expect video game play to also be associated with mindfulness through the mediating variables of immersion/absorption.

Towards this end we administered two mindfulness scales (a measure of presence and a measure of immersion), to individuals who differed in their video game play history. As expected, and previously found by others (Persky & Blascovich, 2008; Nowak et al., 2006), those who were high end gamers scored significantly higher on immersion and presence but there was a split with regard to the two mindfulness scales. One scale was modified from the MAAS (Brown & Ryan, 2003) to address mindfulness during game play, while the second scale was a broader inquiry (Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004). The same gamer group difference emerged for responses to the mindfulness during gaming scale, favoring high end gamers. However, the general mindfulness scale (Brown & Ryan, 2003) was scored into four subscales of which none resulted in gamer group differences.

Because of these different results with the major variable of interest, one situation specific and the other more generic, we focused on the hard core gamer by examining game genre preferences. Genre is a term used to categorize things by a loose set of criteria. It is widely used in the literary world and media studies but tends to have no fixed boundaries. Genre applied to video games has a fundamental difference from other media applications. Specifically, video game genres have developed along the lines of the nature of the interactions rather than visual or auditory differences (Apperley, 2006). Unlike literary genres, a video game genre is independent of its game play content (Adams & Rollings, 2006). Thus a first person shooter set in the wild west is comparable to one set in the far future. Therefore, game genre has been used to look at game motivation (Tanis & Jansz, 2008), addiction (Huh, 2008) and cognitive load (Gackenbach & Rosie, 2009).

Table 2. Principle component factor analysis on selected scales and subscales

Scales and Subscales 1 2 3 4Observe subscale mindfulness .319 -.127 -.620 .309Describe subscale mindfulness .455 .496 .131 .199Act with awareness subscale mindfulness -.240 .344 -.076 .833Act without judgment mindfulness .154 .678 .531 .009Sum of mindfulness in game items .504 -.344 .474 .064Sum all immersion items but 11 & 12 .924 .184 -.166 -.116Focus subscale mean immersion .731 .240 -.302 -.104Involve subscale mean immersion .786 .227 -.132 -.245Sum of all presence items .721 -.303 .198 .262Sum of z-scores for 4 gaming variables .612 -.554 .218 .269

Table 1. ANCOVA’s With Sex of Subject Controlled and Descriptive Statistics for Significant Scales/Subscales.

*There are items in the Immersion sum score that are not included in either of the subscale scores.

Scale (Subscales) F-Values Game Group N Mean StandardDeviation

F(1, 91) = 6.742, p<.011, part eta2 = .069

Low 46 108.41 44.83 Presence

High 48 148.63 39.41 F(1, 185) = 12.446, p<.001, part eta2 = .063

Low 110 112.02 15.53 Immersion Sum Score*

High 78 118.99 13.44 Immersion main effect: F(1, 185) = 30.641, p< .0001, part eta2 = .142

Low 110 4.55 .768 Immersion (Focus Subscale)

High 78 4.88 .728 Video game group main effect: F(1, 185) = 6.829, p< .01, part eta2 = .036

Low 110 4.32 1.04 Immersion (Involvement Subscale)

High 78 4.36 1.02

F(1, 183) = 14.065, p< .0001, part eta2 = .071

Low 106 37.13 13.85

Mindfulness (In-game)

High 80 48.89 14.20

We would like to thank Grant MacEwan University Research Council and The Alberta Association of Colleges and Technical Institutes for a grant to support this research.

The expected associations emerged in this factor analysis. That is, two general mindfulness subscales and mindfulness during gaming were associated with all immersion and presence scales as well as high end gaming history. It should be noted that mindfulness was also associated with the lack of gaming and presence during gaming or mindfulness in games. The key distinction between these two factors, both loaded gaming and mindfulness, is the immersive tendency. This is conceptualized in the literature as an individual difference variable measuring the degree to which an individual has a tendency to get highly immersed (computer literature) or absorbed (psychological literature) in various activities. When that was high the mindfulness gaming association emerged.

A final consideration needs to be addressed and that is the role of aggression and presence in gaming. Both Persky and Blascovich (2008) and Nowak et al. (2006) found that their gamers reported more presence when playing aggressive games. Likewise the hard core games selected herein are those that are typically aggressive. Thus the associations found in the factor analysis may be specific to aggressive genre preferences, although sport type genre’s can be quite aggressive, this was not analyzed herein. However, within the model proposed by Gackenbach (2008) of gaming as a type of meditative practice it should be noted that there are a variety of practices which are physical and defensive in nature (i.e., karate) and thus plausibly used in aggressive settings.

In conclusion, we found tentative support for our major hypothesis that mindfulness is associated with gaming for a subset of high end gamers. Immersion (or absorption) seems to be an individual difference variable and game genre (i.e., aggressive types) is a situational variable which may mediate the mindfulness-gamer association.

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