Department of Psychology, Ryerson University.
Department of Psychology, University of Calgary.
Psychol Addict Behav. 2021 Dec;35(8):961-973. doi: 10.1037/adb0000716. Epub 2021 Mar 22.
Attentional biases (ABs) have been shown to develop in the context of substance use disorders. Relatively less focus has been paid toward the development of ABs in behavioral addictions such as gambling disorder (GD). Furthermore, the psychological predictors and moderators of AB in GD remain unknown. The present study addressed these empirical gaps. Fifty-two non-GD electronic gaming machine (EGM) players, 25 GD-EGM players, and 61 non-gamblers completed measures of gambling-related behaviors and cognitions (problem gambling severity, cravings, expectancies, motives) and substance use and mental health (alcohol use severity, depression symptoms). The relationships between these constructs and AB for EGM images were then assessed using a free-viewing eye-tracking paradigm. Non-GD EGM players and GD-EGM players attended to EGM images significantly more than neutral images (with the largest AB for the EGM players with GD). For all EGM players, gambling expectancies regarding the negative emotional impact of gambling and alcohol use severity were associated with greater AB. For non-GD EGM players only, AB was moderated by the anticipation aspect of gambling craving and the self-enhancement aspect of gambling expectancies. The results provide further evidence that ABs develop in the context of excessive gambling and are associated with gambling and psychological variables. The findings support the incentive-salience theory of ABs in gambling and provide a rationale for the development of AB modification programs in the treatment of gambling disorder. Given the predominantly white sample, our results may not generalize to individuals of other ethnicities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
注意偏差（ABs）已在物质使用障碍的背景下得到证实。相对较少关注行为成瘾（如赌博障碍）中 ABs 的发展。此外，赌博障碍中 AB 的心理预测因子和调节剂仍然未知。本研究解决了这些经验差距。52 名非赌博电子游戏（EGM）玩家、25 名赌博障碍-EGM 玩家和 61 名非赌徒完成了赌博相关行为和认知（赌博问题严重程度、渴望、期望、动机）以及物质使用和心理健康（酒精使用严重程度、抑郁症状）的测量。然后使用自由观看眼动追踪范式评估这些结构与 EGM 图像的 AB 之间的关系。非赌博 EGM 玩家和赌博障碍-EGM 玩家对 EGM 图像的关注明显多于中性图像（赌博障碍-EGM 玩家的 AB 最大）。对于所有 EGM 玩家，关于赌博对情绪影响的赌博期望和酒精使用严重程度与更大的 AB 相关。对于非赌博 EGM 玩家，仅 AB 受到赌博渴望的预期方面和赌博期望的自我增强方面的调节。研究结果进一步证明，ABs 在过度赌博的情况下发展，并与赌博和心理变量相关。这些发现支持 ABs 的激励-突显理论在赌博中的作用，并为赌博障碍治疗中 AB 修正计划的发展提供了依据。鉴于主要是白人样本，我们的结果可能不适用于其他种族的个体。
