New York Times :: The Tug of the Newfangled Slot Machines
Article

> The makers of slot machines may rely on the lure of
> life-changing jackpots to attract customers, but the
> machines' ability to hook so deeply into a player's
> cerebral cortex derives from one of the more powerful human
> feedback mechanisms, a phenomenon behavioral scientists
> call infrequent random reinforcement, or ''intermittent
> reward.'' Children whose parents consistently shower them
> with love and attention tend to take that devotion for
> granted. Those who know they'll never be rewarded by their
> parents stop trying after a while. But those who are
> rewarded only intermittently -- in the fashion of a slot
> machine -- will often pursue positive outcomes with a
> persistent tenacity. ''That hard-wiring that nature gave us
> didn't anticipate electronic gaming devices,'' says Howard
> Shaffer, director of the division on addictions at Harvard
> Medical School and perhaps the country's foremost authority
> on gambling disorders.

Because love is the ultimate gambling disorder and we're all raised by
emotional slot-machines. Some simply dribble more cherries than others.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 9:04 AM

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By  Tomohiro Idokoro, at 8:04 PM  

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