Louvain Experimental Psychopathology Research Group (LEP), Psychological Science Research Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Numerical Cognition Group, Psychological Science Research Institute and Neuroscience Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; Cognitive Science and Assessment Institute, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2021 Aug 1;225:108803. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.108803. Epub 2021 Jun 18.
Dominant theoretical models consider that attentional biases (AB) towards alcohol-related stimuli play a key role in the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorder (AUD). Their assessment has however showed high inconsistencies and has been mostly based on unreliable behavioral measures. This study evaluated the presence and extent of alcohol-related AB in recently detoxified inpatients with severe AUD by combining the visual probe task (VPT) paradigm with eye-tracking measures, known to improve the VPT reliability in subclinical populations.
We recruited 24 patients and 27 matched healthy controls. They performed the VPT (measuring reaction time when processing visual targets preceded by alcoholic and matched non-alcoholic pictures) combined with eye-tracking measures (dwell time, first fixation direction/duration, second fixation direction) during two sessions. Estimates of internal consistency, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability were measured.
Patients showed shorter dwell time for alcohol cues (p = .004, d=.853) and reduced number of fixations towards alcohol after a first fixation on non-alcohol cues (p = .012, d=.758) compared to controls. These findings suggest the presence of alcohol-related avoidance AB in detoxified patients with severe AUD. The VPT achieved excellent reliability for these eye-tracking measures. Reaction times and first fixation measures did not indicate any AB pattern and showed poor reliability.
The VPT, when combined with dwell time and second fixation direction, constitutes a reliable method for assessing AB in detoxified patients. It showed the presence of an alcohol-related avoidance bias in this clinical population, in contradiction with the approach bias predicted by theoretical models.
占主导地位的理论模型认为，对酒精相关刺激的注意力偏差（AB）在酒精使用障碍（AUD）的发展和维持中起着关键作用。然而，它们的评估显示出高度的不一致性，并且主要基于不可靠的行为测量。本研究通过将视觉探测任务（VPT）范式与眼动追踪测量相结合，评估了最近因严重 AUD 住院戒酒的患者中是否存在并评估了酒精相关 AB 的程度，众所周知，这种方法可提高亚临床人群中 VPT 的可靠性。
我们招募了 24 名患者和 27 名匹配的健康对照者。他们在两个阶段中进行了 VPT（测量处理视觉目标时的反应时间，这些目标之前是酒精和匹配的非酒精图片）和眼动追踪测量（注视时间、首次注视方向/持续时间、第二次注视方向）。测量了内部一致性、半分可靠性和测试-重测可靠性的估计值。
与对照组相比，患者对酒精线索的注视时间更短（p =.004，d=.853），对非酒精线索进行首次注视后，对酒精的注视次数减少（p =.012，d=.758）。这些发现表明，在严重 AUD 戒酒的患者中存在与酒精相关的回避 AB。VPT 对于这些眼动追踪测量具有出色的可靠性。反应时间和首次注视措施没有显示出任何 AB 模式，并且可靠性较差。
VPT 与注视时间和第二次注视方向相结合，是评估戒酒患者 AB 的可靠方法。它在该临床人群中显示出了与理论模型预测的趋近偏差相反的与酒精相关的回避偏差。
