Playing Tetris for 3 minutes reduces cravings

Sebastian’s note #4: Elaboration of intrusive thoughts, resulting in cravings, can be reduced by blocking the visuospatial sketchpad

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Source: Skorka-Brown, J., Andrade, J. and May, J., 2014. Playing ‘Tetris’ reduces the strength, frequency and vividness of naturally occurring cravings. Appetite, 76, pp.161–165.

Craving as a working memory (WM) process

• According to Elaborated Intrusion Theory (EIT), craving is principally a working memory (WM) process.
• In WM models, a visuospatial sketchpad (VSS) processes visual information and a phonological loop (PL) component deals with auditory information.
• Affectively charged mental images are maintained in the VSS.
• Internal or external triggers lead to thoughts that are either ignored or elaborated upon, depending on salience and current cognitive demands.
• Upon elaboration, mental imagery is developed and maintained. Images can be based on external or internal information (e.g, a memory of eating chocolate).

WM components can be blocked

• Cravings involve multiple senses.
• Kavanagh, May and Andrade (2009): on average, 2.3 sensory modalities in alcohol craving imagery
• WM components can be blocked: the VSS with tasks involving spatial manipulation or visual distraction and the PL with verbal tasks.
• Tetris has been used to load the VSS in prior research.
  For example Stuart, Holmes, and Brewin (2006) used Tetris to block encoding of visual images in a traumatic film.

Participants and procedure

• N = 121 undergraduates (27 males)
• Two conditions: Load and Tetris
  Participants in the Tetris condition played the game for three minutes.
  In the Load condition, patricipants were told that Tetris was loading but all they saw was a load screen followed by a “Load error” message.
• Participants were tested in pairs (one per condition) between 9am and 4:45 pm to allow for variance in time of the day.
• Participants rated their current craving on a one-item scale of 1 (no craving at all) to 100 (craving something very much).
  Data from participants who reported not craving anything (one third) were excluded.
• In addition, they completed adapted versions of the Craving Experience Questionnaire (CEQ).
  CEQ-S_now asked participants to rate the strength, imagery vividness and intrusiveness of their current craving on an 11-point scale (before the experimental period). Typical question: “Right now, how strong do you want it?”
  CEQ-S_then assessed cravings during the experimenta period (while participants were playing Tetris or looking at the screen)
  CEQ-F_then was based on similar content, but asked participants to rate the frequency of their cravings.

Results

• In the current study, cravings as measured by the one-item scale decreased by 5.5% in the control condition and by about 24% in the Tetris condition.
  Kemps and Tiggemann (2013) found a similar 23% reduction in craving intensity following a disruption of visual imagery.
• Craving strength and craving imagery as measured by the CEQ adaptations were reduced to a greater extent in the Tetris group.For example, Cravity strength decreased, on average, from 5.0 to 2.6 in the Tetris condition and from 4.1 to 3.7 in the control condition (numbers rounded).
• Results, thus, support the prediction from EIT that taxing the VSS weakens cravings through effects on craving imagery.
• An alternative explanation that cannot be ruled out by the current is that any working memory load would have a similar effects. The authors cite previous research that found stronger effects of visual tasks.
  For example, Knäuper et al. (2011): Positive visual imagery was associated with a stronger reduction in food cravings than reciting the alphabet backwards.

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