A narrow notch, groove or opening, as a keyway in a piece of machinery or slit for a coin in a vending machine. Also: a position in a group, series or sequence.
Slot is a popular game at casinos, with several different variations on the original concept. The games are operated using random number generators, and the symbols appear on a reel or multiple reels when the player presses the “spin” button. The weighting of the individual reels is usually different, which impacts the probability of hitting high-paying symbols.
Wins and losses are accompanied by different auditory and visual feedback: the greater the win, the longer the celebratory jingle; and the larger the loss, the less extensive the visual feedback. Dixon et al. (2019) showed that these varying levels of exogenous reinforcment of attention elicit different types of enjoyment during slots play. They proposed that the atypical experience of mind-wandering during slots is a major contributor to the enjoyment that players report.
They further found that the PRP and force measures as a function of win size were highly correlated with positive affect ratings. However, these variables were not positively correlated with either PGSI scores or depression scores. They argued that this suggests that reward reactivity is not the sole route to slots enjoyment and that other aspects of the gaming experience must be accounted for in order to fully understand its underlying motivations. The authors suggest that the findings support their hypothesis that slot players are motivated by a desire to escape the everyday world and their problems.