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May 09, 2004
Slot Machines and Captology
A friend recently sent me a link to an interesting NYTimes article about the Slot Machine revolution (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/magazine/09SLOTS.html). It mentions a number of different techniques (intuitive but insightful, IMHO) to persuade players to spend more money at the machines. One particular innovation was to slow down the process and give more, smaller payouts, to positively reinforce people and may them feel like they're doing well, even if ultimately they still lose all their money. Sacrificing short-term gains from players to ensure long-term addiction to the one-armed bandits is key to their success it seems. I liked the article, in part because it seems to be aiming to demystify the machines to make us less susceptible to the scams. Our lab doesn't research gambling applications, but we continue to explore an area that uses the same principles of operant conditioning: dog training.Posted by at May 9, 2004 03:24 PM
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