A slot is a narrow opening that accepts something, such as a coin or letter. It can also be used to describe a position or assignment, such as the slot that is filled by an ice hockey player on the face-off circles.
The popularity of online slot games is growing at an astounding rate, with developers releasing a variety of new mechanics and game engines that are designed to appeal to specific audiences. In addition, many slot developers have embraced mobile devices, making their games compatible with a wide range of popular smartphones and tablets.
As technology evolved, the mechanical operations of slot machines were replaced with electronic components that enabled manufacturers to assign a different probability of appearing for each symbol on a reel. This altered the perception of slot machine wins and losses, because each symbol appeared to appear frequently enough to win, but not so often as to be considered a loss.
This research sought to address this issue by measuring reward reactivity as a function of the size of a slot machine’s prize. Participants were asked to press a spin button on a slot machine simulator, and the force exerted was measured by a force transducer fixed underneath each spin button. The resulting data was then converted to a volt signal and recorded by an AD Instruments PowerLabs device. This information was then analyzed in Labchart, and two measures of reward reactivity were computed: the PRPs as a function of winnings, and the force measure as a function of losings.
