Nightmare Protection An Experimental Inquiry Carson Flockhart Jayne Gackenbach Allison Ditner 1

Nightmare Protection 2

Previous Research  Initial Study and Replications:  Military  First Responders  Undergraduate Students Previous Research used Correlational techniques. 3

Method  Pre-screened participants on:  Gaming History: High or Low  Sex: Males only  Dream Recall: High levels  Initial Surveys:  Demographics  Shortened version of Video Game Play History (Gackenbach and Rosie, 2009)  Emotional Reactivity and Numbing Scale (Orsillo et al 2007)  Shortened Trauma History inventory (Eng et al 2005) 4

Computer Conditions Creative: Minecraft Combat Centric: Far Cry 3 Control: Article Search 5

Video Game Groups  Groups were based on these variables:  Frequency of play  Length of play  Number  Age began gaming  They were entered into factor analysis, then rank ordered and split in half to define low and high end groups. 6

Movie Condition Misery By Steven King 7

Results  146 participants were involved in the study.  134 provided sufficient information for data analysis.  76 reported some form of a dream. 8

Covariates Based on a summary of research studies done by Levin and Nielson.  Covariates:  Emotional Reactivity  History of Nightmares associated with past trauma  History of play with Minecraft 9

Movie Of all participants included in the study, 80% had not previously seen the movie.  All but one participant watched the entire video clip. It was found that all groups self reports on emotional intensity were the same as well all groups reported similar levels of fear and anxiety in response to the clip. 10

Dream Report  Participants had been asked to report a dream following the laboratory session within the next week.  These dreams were then content analyzed using Revonsuo and Valli’s (2000) Threat Simulation Method. 11

Self Report: Enjoyment Self Report on Enjoyment within conditions 12

Self Report: Presence Presence felt within game condition 13

Coding for Threat  Bad Dream = Unpleasant Dream  Nightmare = Unpleasant AND Forces you Awake 14

Coding For Threat - Judges  High End Gamer’s Dream; Far Cry 3: “ in my dream I was a Marine sniper…” 15

Self Report on Bad Dreams  Definition: “ The Dream was frightening, but not enough to wake me up”  High End Gamer’s Dream; Minecraft: “ it would be like a typical day where I would go to school, but these particular people would not only not respond to my questions but would also stare blankly and walk aimlessly around the room….” 16

Coding for Threat JudgesSelf Report 17

Judges Analysis – Severity of Threat  Low End Gamer’s dream; Far Cry 3: “…the last thing I saw was the SUV driving into my driver side door…” 18

Judges Analysis - Consequence  Low End gamer’s dream; Minecraft: “… a lady appeared, talking very monotonously luring us into a bedroom where we were tied down before being hit with a hammer…” 19

Conclusion 20

Limitations  Low Minecraft participants  High drop out rate  Only Male participants Future Directions of Study  Extension: Horror video games  Genre of games used  Virtual Reality (VR) studies 21

Special Thanks Dr Gackenbach for mentoring me My wife Nicole for supporting me. And My colleagues for assisting me in every way possible MacEwan University and the Undergraduate Student Research Initiative Grant program for making this study possible 22

A Decent Excuse to Play Video Games Thank you for listening. All slides are available at:  www. Spiritwatch.ca And  Academic.macewan.ca/gackenbachj/ 23