Centre for Addictive Behaviours Research, School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, London, SE1 0AA, UK.
Laboratory for Experimental Psychopathology, Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place C. Mercier 10, B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2018 Sep 1;190:42-45. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2018.05.025. Epub 2018 Jun 26.
Understanding the world from another's perspective is an important and potentially automatic human process which is crucial for efficient social interactions. However, while deficits have repeatedly been described for various interpersonal abilities in alcohol-dependence (AD), only one previous study has investigated perspective taking in this pathology.
The current study aimed to explore further how AD affects visual-spatial perspective taking (VSPT) by examining the effect of positive emotional stimuli on VSPT in both an AD and non-AD sample.
Reaction times (RT) for simple spatial judgments were measured. Participants made these judgments from their perspective, but judgments were either congruent or incongruent with the perspective of another agent. The emotion conveyed by that agent (happy or neutral) was manipulated across trials.
Compared to baseline, both AD and non-AD groups displayed delayed RTs for spatial judgments when these were incongruent with the perspective of a happy agent (the expected VSPT RT cost, indicating automatic VSPT). The AD, but not the non-AD group, further displayed a VSPT RT cost when the agent expressed a neutral emotion.
There was no evidence that AD compromised automatic VSPT. However, as in previous research, AD was associated with differences in the processing of emotional stimuli. Future research should explore which 'real-world' settings are likely to trigger social confusion and misunderstanding.
从他人的角度理解世界是一种重要且潜在的自动人类过程，对于有效的社会互动至关重要。然而，尽管在酒精依赖症（AD）的各种人际能力方面已经反复描述了缺陷，但之前只有一项研究调查了这种病理学中的换位思考。
本研究旨在通过检查 AD 和非 AD 样本中积极情绪刺激对 VSPT 的影响，进一步探讨 AD 如何影响视觉空间换位思考（VSPT）。
测量了简单空间判断的反应时间（RT）。参与者从自己的角度做出这些判断，但判断与另一个代理的视角要么一致，要么不一致。在整个试验中，代理所传达的情绪（快乐或中性）被操纵。
与基线相比，AD 和非 AD 组在空间判断与快乐代理的视角不一致时，反应时间都延迟（预期的 VSPT RT 成本，表明自动 VSPT）。AD 组但非 AD 组在代理表达中性情绪时进一步显示出 VSPT RT 成本。
没有证据表明 AD 损害了自动 VSPT。然而，与之前的研究一样，AD 与情绪刺激处理的差异有关。未来的研究应该探索哪些“现实世界”的情况可能会引发社交混乱和误解。
