Standardization of a Gaming Image Database for Visual Processing Research

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to develop a database of gaming photo stimuli to be used in future psychological research assessing behavioral, cognitive, and neural correlates related to gaming. Participants (ages 18-42, N = 549; 43.17% male) completed ratings on 119 gaming-related images across 5 different categories: valence, arousal, relevance, urge, and interest. A measure of gaming addiction was also included. Positive associations between gaming addiction scores and image ratings were predicted. Gamers rated images higher than non-gamers across multiple dimensions including valence (p = .0012), arousal (p < .0001), urge (p < .0001), and interest (p < .0001). Gaming addiction scores were positively associated with image ratings for valence, r = .399, arousal, r = .438, relevance, r = .215, urge, r = .550, and interest, r = .523, p < .0001. Finally, average image ratings for the overall sample ranged from 5.65 (SD = 2.04) to 3.63 (SD = 1.91) for relevance and interest, respectively. These findings suggest that databases of video gaming imagery, rated for valence, arousal, relevance, urge, and interest, could possibly be used in studies assessing cognitive processing of video gaming-related stimuli in individuals with problematic gaming behavior.