Cognitive flexibility, impulsivity, and compulsivity in problematic consumption behaviours

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Cognitive deficits like inflexibility, impulsivity, and compulsivity are known in substance use and gambling disorders.
• It remains unclear if these deficits extend to other addictive behaviors such as excessive buying, gaming, or pornography consumption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate cognitive inflexibility, impulsivity, and compulsivity across different addictive behaviors.
• To compare these cognitive domains between regular gamblers, buyers, video gamers, pornography consumers, and a control group.

Main Methods:

• Cognitive inflexibility assessed using the Probabilistic Reversal Learning Task (PRLT).
• Impulsivity measured via the UPPS-P model.
• Compulsivity evaluated across five groups: gamblers, buyers, gamers, pornography users, and controls.
• Multivariate analysis and Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects (GLME) models were employed.

Main Results:

• The buyers group scored higher in several impulsivity and compulsivity domains compared to other groups.
• Buyers demonstrated poorer overall cognitive flexibility on the PRLT than gamers and pornography users.
• No significant differences in reversal learning costs were found between groups, indicating similar adaptation costs to changing reward contingencies.

Conclusions:

• Impulsivity and compulsivity manifest distinctively across various addictive behaviors.
• Cognitive inflexibility may be present in excessive buying, but not necessarily more so than in other addictive behaviors during reversal learning.
• Findings suggest the need for personalized interventions considering specific cognitive deficits and the nature of the addictive behavior.