Department of Psychology, School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Department of Health and Social Sciences, Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences, University of the West, Bristol, UK.
Addiction. 2020 Sep;115(9):1650-1659. doi: 10.1111/add.14997. Epub 2020 Mar 7.
Research indicates that high consumers of alcohol exhibit attentional bias (AB) towards alcohol-related cues, suggestive of a cognitive mechanism that might drive substance seeking. Many tasks that measure AB (e.g. visual probe, addiction Stroop), however, are limited by their reliance on non-appetitive control cues, the serial presentation of stimuli and their poor internal reliability. The current study employed a visual conjunction search (VCS) task capable of presenting multiple alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive cues simultaneously to assess whether social drinkers attend selectively to alcoholic stimuli. To assess the construct validity of this task, we examined whether alcohol consumption and related problems, subjective craving and drinking motives predict alcohol-specific AB.
A VCS task was performed in a laboratory setting, which required participants to detect the presence of appetitive alcoholic (wine, beer) and non-alcoholic (cola, lemonade) targets within arrays of matching and non-matching distractors.
Data from 99 participants were assessed [mean = 20.77, standard deviation (SD) = 2.98; 64 (65%) females], with 81.8% meeting the threshold for harmful alcohol consumption (mean = 12.89, SD = 5.79).
Self-reports of alcohol consumption and related problems [Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)], subjective craving (Alcohol Craving Questionnaire Short Form) and drinking motives (Drinking Motives Questionnaire Short Form) were obtained, and the VCS task measured response times for the correct detection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic targets.
Participants were significantly quicker to detect alcoholic relative to non-alcoholic appetitive targets (P < 0.001, d = 0.41), which was predicted positively by AUDIT scores (P = 0.013, R = 0.06%). The VCS task achieved excellent reliability (α > 0.79), superior to other paradigms.
The visual conjunction search task appears to be a highly reliable method for assessing alcohol-related attentional bias, and shows that heavy social drinkers prioritize alcoholic cues in their immediate environment.
研究表明，大量饮酒者对与酒精相关的线索表现出注意力偏向（AB），这表明存在一种可能驱动物质寻求的认知机制。然而，许多测量 AB 的任务（例如视觉探针、成瘾 Stroop）受到其对非激励性控制线索的依赖、刺激的顺序呈现以及内部可靠性差的限制。本研究采用视觉联合搜索（VCS）任务，能够同时呈现多个酒精和非酒精性激励线索，以评估社交饮酒者是否会选择性地关注酒精刺激。为了评估该任务的建构效度，我们考察了饮酒量和相关问题、主观渴求感和饮酒动机是否预测酒精特异性 AB。
在实验室环境中进行 VCS 任务，要求参与者在匹配和不匹配的分心物数组中检测到有吸引力的酒精性（葡萄酒、啤酒）和非酒精性（可乐、柠檬水）目标的存在。
评估了 99 名参与者的数据[平均值=20.77，标准差（SD）=2.98；64（65%）名女性]，其中 81.8%达到了有害饮酒的阈值（平均值=12.89，SD=5.79）。
获得了饮酒量和相关问题的自我报告[酒精使用障碍识别测试（AUDIT）]、主观渴求感（酒精渴求问卷短表）和饮酒动机（饮酒动机问卷短表），并通过 VCS 任务测量正确检测到酒精性和非酒精性目标的反应时间。
参与者显著更快地检测到酒精性相对非酒精性激励性目标（P<0.001，d=0.41），这与 AUDIT 评分呈正相关（P=0.013，R=0.06%）。VCS 任务的可靠性很高（α>0.79），优于其他范式。
视觉联合搜索任务似乎是一种评估与酒精相关的注意力偏向的高度可靠方法，并且表明大量社交饮酒者在其周围环境中优先考虑酒精性线索。
