Enhanced identification of smoking-related words during the attentional blink in smokers

From non-conscious processing to conscious events: a minimalist approach

The minimalist approach that we develop here is a framework that allows to appreciate how non-conscious processing and conscious contents shape human cognition, broadly defined. It is composed of three simple principles. First, cognitive processes are inherently non-conscious, while their inputs and (interim) outputs may be consciously experienced. Second, non-conscious processes and elements of the cognitive architecture prioritize information for conscious experiences. Third, conscious events are composed of series of conscious contents and non-conscious processes, with increased duration leading to more opportunity for processing. The narrowness of conscious experiences is conceptualized here as a solution to the problem of channeling the plethora of non-conscious processes into action and communication processes that are largely serial. The framework highlights the importance of prioritization for consciousness, and we provide an illustrative review of three main factors that shape prioritization-stimulus strength, motivational relevance and mental accessibility. We further discuss when and how this framework (i) is compatible with previous theories, (ii) enables new understandings of established findings and models, and (iii) generates new predictions and understandings.

Attentional bias in opioid users: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Opioid use in the United States is a national public health emergency. The primary treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) is medication assisted treatment (MAT). Although effective in improving treatment outcomes in OUD, there is a need to develop behavioral treatments adjunctive to MAT. The current study investigates attentional bias in OUD as a possible target for adjunctive behavioral treatments.

METHODS

Comprehensive literature searches of psychological, medical, and educational databases were conducted through October 2017. Eligible peer-reviewed studies evaluated attentional bias in opioid users, used a task to evaluate attentional bias that included active response to study stimuli, calculated attention bias by comparing response to drug and neutral stimuli, and could isolate attentional bias specific to opioid versus neutral stimuli from bias to other salient stimuli.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of our systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that individuals with OUD exhibit robust attentional bias to opioid cues, even when engaged in MAT. Interventions that reduce attentional bias may be a useful adjunct to MAT.

Attentional blink to alcohol cues in binge drinkers versus non-binge drinkers

Previous studies have shown alcohol-related attentional biases in social drinkers; however, the temporal dynamics of these biases are not well understood. The current study examined this issue in 94 participants (27 male) categorized as binge drinkers (BD) or non-binge drinkers (NBD). Two versions of an alcohol-related attentional blink (AB) paradigm were used: one with words and one with images. It was predicted that BDs (versus NBDs) would exhibit reduced AB for alcohol cues, which would be enhanced for the pictorial version of the task (versus words). The relationships between AB and alcohol craving, quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption, symptoms of alcohol use disorder, and family history of alcohol use disorder (AUD) were also examined. While an AB was observed for both alcohol and non-alcohol targets in the NBD group, no AB was found for alcohol targets in the BD group. Furthermore, the magnitude of the AB was related to drinking, such that higher self-reported hazardous drinking was associated with smaller ABs to alcohol-related targets. However, AB was not related to craving or family history of AUD. These results suggest that alcohol-related stimuli are processed more efficiently by BDs, especially those with hazardous alcohol consumption patterns. These results may inform treatment and prevention efforts targeting binge drinkers.

Genesis and Maintenance of Attentional Biases: The Role of the Locus Coeruleus-Noradrenaline System

Emotionally arousing events are typically better remembered than mundane ones, in part because emotionally relevant aspects of our environment are prioritized in attention. Such biased attentional tuning is itself the result of associative processes through which we learn affective and motivational relevance of cues. We propose that the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NA) system plays an important role in the genesis of attentional biases through associative learning processes as well as their maintenance. We further propose that individual differences in and disruptions of the LC-NA system underlie the development of maladaptive biases linked to psychopathology. We provide support for the proposed role of the LC-NA system by first reviewing work on attentional biases in development and its link to psychopathology in relation to alterations and individual differences in NA availability. We focus on pharmacological manipulations to demonstrate the effect of a disrupted system as well as the ADRA2b polymorphism as a tool to investigate naturally occurring differences in NA availability. We next review associative learning processes that-modulated by the LC-NA system-result in such implicit attentional biases. Further, we demonstrate how NA may influence aversive and appetitive conditioning linked to anxiety disorders as well as addiction and depression.

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems: Monetary Motivation Can Exacerbate the Attentional Blink

The attentional blink (AB) is a compelling psychological phenomenon wherein observers are less likely to identify a second target (T2) when it appears approximately 200 ms after a first target (T1) in a rapidly presented stream of items. The present investigation examined how monetary motivation could impact the AB when participants were differentially motivated to identify T1 versus T2. Participants completed one of three conditions where the only difference across conditions was a motivational manipulation: a standard AB task (control condition), a motivated condition with T1 worth double the points of T2, or a motivated condition with T1 worth half the points of T2 (points in the motivated conditions were linked to a possible monetary bonus). Motivation had an expected influence on overall performance as both motivated conditions had higher overall T1 accuracy relative to the control condition. More specific to the question at hand, the AB was exacerbated (ie T2 performance was worse shortly after T1) when T1 was worth more than T2. This finding suggests that participants overallocated attentional resources to T1 processing at the expense of T2 processing, and it supports current theories of the AB.

Reduced attentional blink for gambling-related stimuli in problem gamblers

Although there is considerable information concerning the attentional biases in psychoactive substance use and misuse, much less is known about the contribution of attentional processing in problem gambling. The aim of this study was to examine whether problem gamblers (PrG) exhibit attentional bias at the level of the encoding processing stage. Forty PrG and 35 controls participated in an attentional blink (AB) paradigm in which they were required to identify both gambling and neutral words that appeared in a rapid serial visual presentation. Explicit motivation (e.g., intrinsic/arousal, extrinsic, amotivation) toward the gambling cues was recorded. A diminished AB effect for gambling-related words compared to neutral targets was identified in PrG. In contrast, AB was similar when either gambling-related or neutral words were presented to controls. Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between the reduced AB for gambling-related words and the sub-score of intrinsic/arousal motivation to gamble in PrG. Such findings suggest that the PrG group exhibits an enhanced ability to process gambling-related information, which is associated with their desire to gamble for arousal reasons. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed.

Testing the validity of implicit measures of wanting and liking

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Over the last decade, there has been a surge of studies examining implicit processes underlying addiction. Some implicit measures are assumed to reflect "liking" whereas other implicit measures are assumed to reflect "wanting". There is, however, little evidence to back up this claim. We examined whether implicit and explicit measures of wanting and of liking are differentially sensitive to manipulations of wanting and expected that these manipulations would affect primarily measures of wanting.

METHODS

Smokers and non-smokers performed both implicit and explicit measures that are assumed to assess wanting and liking for smoking. Smokers were tested once immediately after smoking, and once after 12 h of nicotine-deprivation.

RESULTS

IAT results suggested that smokers showed more implicit liking for nicotine when they were deprived than when they were satiated, whereas there were no differences in wanting. Smokers also seemed to show both more implicit wanting and more implicit liking for nicotine compared to non-smokers. Explicit measures did yield the expected results in that smokers reported to want nicotine more when they were deprived, whereas there were smaller differences in liking.

CONCLUSIONS

We found little support for the assumption that implicit measures of wanting and liking capture different processes. Researchers should thus be cautious in drawing conclusions about wanting and liking on the basis of these measures.

Visual Attention to Antismoking PSAs: Smoking Cues Versus Other Attention-Grabbing Features

This study examines how addicted smokers attend visually to smoking-related public service announcements (PSAs) in adults smokers. Smokers' onscreen visual fixation is an indicator of cognitive resources allocated to visual attention. Characteristic of individuals with addictive tendencies, smokers are expected to be appetitively activated by images of their addiction-specifically smoking cues. At the same time, these cues are embedded in messages that associate avoidance responses with these appetitive cues, potentially inducing avoidance of PSA processing. Findings suggest that segments of PSAs that contain smoking cues are processed similarly to segments that contain complex stimuli (operationalized in this case as high in information introduced) and that visual attention is aligned with smoking cues on the screen.

The attentional blink is diminished for targets that form coherent semantic categories

Studies have shown that the attentional blink (AB) effect is diminished for intrinsically salient T2 stimuli, such as arousing, familiar, personally relevant words, or stimuli with salient low-level visual features. We examined whether the AB is diminished also for stimuli that do not have special inherent properties but are made salient by the context. One such contextual factor is the coherence of the T2 stimulus set. In three experiments, we found that the AB is diminished for stimuli that form a coherent semantic category within the T2 stimulus set. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Reduced attentional blink for alcohol-related stimuli in heavy social drinkers

Researchers have used various paradigms to show that attentional biases for substance-related stimuli are an important feature of addictive behaviours. However, it is not clear whether these attentional biases occur at the level of encoding or at later post-attentive processing stages. We examined attentional bias at the level of encoding with the attentional blink paradigm in a sample of non-clinical heavy and light-drinking students. Our results show a diminished attentional blink effect for alcohol-related words compared with soft drink-related words among heavy drinkers. The attentional blink was equally strong for alcohol-related and soft drink-related words among light drinkers. This suggests that alcohol-related information is processed relatively more efficiently in the former group. Even though these results are promising, our study shows that the internal consistency of the attentional blink can be improved.

A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between attentional bias and subjective craving in substance abuse

Theoretical models of addiction suggest that attentional bias for substance-related cues should be associated with self-reported craving. The authors evaluated the strength of the association by performing a meta-analysis on 68 independent data sets from which correlation coefficients between subjective craving and attentional bias indices were derived. Additional stratified analyses were conducted to identify any variables that might moderate the association between craving and attentional bias. The primary meta-analysis indicated a significant, albeit weak (r=.19), association between attentional bias and craving. Stratified analyses revealed that the association was larger for illicit drug and caffeine craving than for alcohol and tobacco craving, larger for direct measures of attention (eye movement measures and event-related potential measures) than for indirect behavioral measures of attentional bias, and larger when craving strength was high than when it was low (all ps<.05). The size of the correlation did not differ among patients in treatment and individuals who were not seeking treatment. These results suggest that attentional bias and craving are related phenomena, although the relationship is generally modest and appears to be moderated by various factors. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Effects of smoking abstinence, smoking cues and nicotine replacement in smokers with schizophrenia and controls

The mechanisms underlying the low smoking cessation rates among smokers with schizophrenia (SS) are unknown. In this laboratory study, we compared the responses of 21 SS and 21 non-psychiatric controls (CS) to manipulations of 5-hour smoking abstinence, transdermal nicotine replacement (0 mg, 21 mg and 42 mg), and in vivo smoking cues. Results indicate that SS were more sensitive than CS to the effects of acute abstinence on carbon monoxide (CO) boost, but not more sensitive to the effects of abstinence on urge levels or withdrawal symptoms. SS and CS did not differ in urge response to in vivo smoking cues, but SS were less consistent in their reactions. These findings suggest that heightened sensitivity to the effects of abstinence on smoke intake may partially account for the low cessation rates experienced by SS, but other potential mechanisms should be explored using behavioral laboratory models.