Inhibition of Addictive Behaviors by Peer-Group Effect in a Conditional Delayed Reward Task

Abstract

In recent years, especially in the adolescent generation, there has been a problem that relying on games and the Internet by the people interferes with their lives. This problem can be regarded as one of the delayed reward tasks. In this study, we propose a conditional delayed reward task in which players can get small reward by continuing playing the game without studying, but large negative rewards are given to the players later. In order to investigate the cause and countermeasures of this problem, we adopt a reinforcement learning model and focus on the peer-group effect (PGE) in which positive or negative influences are given from the group to individuals as one of ways of inhibiting the problem. Our simulation results showed that, in a case of the state without the PGE, individuals with a small gamma value, which is one of the parameters of the reinforcement learning model and suggested to correspond to the amount of serotonin in the brain, continue to play the game; namely, become a kind of addict state. We have also found that, in the condition with the PGE, players who were in game dependent in the absence of the PGE become to choose studying than gaming.