Bollen, Z. orcid.org/0000-0001-6137-0679, Pabst, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-1265-3899, Masson, N. et al. (3 more authors) (2024) Craving modulates attentional bias towards alcohol in severe alcohol use disorder: an eye‐tracking study. Addiction, 119 (1). pp. 102-112. ISSN 0965-2140
Abstract
Background and aims
Competing models disagree on three theoretical questions regarding alcohol-related attentional bias (AB), a key process in severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD): (1) is AB more of a trait (fixed, associated with alcohol use severity) or state (fluid, associated with momentary craving states) characteristic of SAUD; (2) does AB purely reflect the over-activation of the reflexive/reward system or is it also influenced by the activity of the reflective/control system and (3) does AB rely upon early or later processing stages? We addressed these issues by investigating the time-course of AB and its modulation by subjective craving and cognitive load in SAUD.
Design
A free-viewing eye-tracking task, presenting pictures of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, combined with a concurrent cognitive task with three difficulty levels.
Setting
A laboratory setting in the detoxification units of three Belgian hospitals.
Participants
We included 30 patients with SAUD self-reporting craving at testing time, 30 patients with SAUD reporting a total absence of craving and 30 controls matched on sex and age. All participants from SAUD groups met the DSM-5 criteria for SAUD.
Measurements
We assessed AB through early and late eye-tracking indices. We evaluated the modulation of AB by craving (comparison between patients with/without craving) and cognitive load (variation of AB with the difficulty level of the concurrent task).
Findings
Dwell time measure indicated that SAUD patients with craving allocated more attention towards alcohol-related stimuli than patients without craving (P < 0.001, d = 1.093), resulting in opposite approach/avoidance AB according to craving presence/absence. SAUD patients without craving showed a stronger avoidance AB than controls (P = 0.003, d = 0.806). AB did not vary according to cognitive load (P = 0.962, η2p = 0.004).
Conclusions
The direction of alcohol-related attentional bias (approach/avoidance) appears to be determined by patients' subjective craving at testing time and does not function as a stable trait of severe alcohol use disorder. Alcohol-related attentional bias appears to rely on later/controlled attentional stages but is not modulated by the saturation of the reflective/control system.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Addiction is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Alcohol; alcohol use disorder; attentional bias; avoidance bias; cognitive load; eye-tracking; Humans; Craving; Alcoholism; Eye-Tracking Technology; Attentional Bias; Alcohol Drinking; Ethanol; Cues |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 28 Nov 2024 08:53 |
Last Modified: | 29 Nov 2024 08:40 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/add.16333 |
Related URLs: | |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:220178 |