University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB, T2N1N4, Canada.
Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada.
Nicotine Tob Res. 2022 Aug 6;24(9):1439-1447. doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntac112.
This study examined attentional bias (AB) to e-cigarette cues among a sample of non-smoking daily e-cigarette users (n = 27), non-smoking occasional e-cigarette users (n = 32), and control participants (n = 61) who did not smoke or use e-cigarettes. The possibility that e-cigarette users develop a transference of cues to traditional cigarettes was also examined.
AB was assessed using a free-viewing eye-gaze tracking methodology, in which participants viewed 180 pairs of images for 4 seconds (e-cigarette and neutral image, e-cigarette and smoking image, smoking and neutral image).
Daily and occasional e-cigarette users attended to pairs of e-cigarette and neutral images equally, whereas non-users attended to neutral images significantly more than e-cigarette images. All three groups attended to e-cigarette images significantly more than smoking images, with significantly larger biases for e-cigarette users. There were no between-group differences in attention to pairs of smoking and neutral images. A moderation analysis indicated that for occasional users but not daily users, years of vaping reduced the bias toward neutral images over smoking images.
Taken together, the results indicate that the e-cigarette users exhibit heightened attention to e-cigarettes relative to non-users, which may have implications as to how they react to e-cigarette cues in real-world settings. AB for e-cigarettes did not transfer to traditional cigarette cues, which indicates that further research is required to identify the mechanisms involved in the migration of e-cigarettes to traditional cigarettes.
This study is the first attempt to examine attentional biases for e-cigarette cues among non-smoking current e-cigarette users using eye-gaze tracking. The results contribute to the growing literature on the correlates of problematic e-cigarette use and indicate that daily and occasional e-cigarette use is associated with attentional biases for e-cigarettes. The existence of attentional biases in e-cigarette users may help to explain the high rate of failure to quit e-cigarettes and provides support for the utility of attentional bias modification in the treatment of problematic e-cigarette use.
本研究考察了非吸烟每日电子烟使用者（n=27）、非吸烟偶尔电子烟使用者（n=32）和不吸烟或不使用电子烟的对照参与者（n=61）对电子烟线索的注意偏向（AB）。还研究了电子烟使用者是否会将线索转移到传统香烟上。
使用自由观看眼动跟踪方法评估 AB，其中参与者观看了 180 对图像 4 秒（电子烟和中性图像、电子烟和吸烟图像、吸烟和中性图像）。
每日和偶尔电子烟使用者对电子烟和中性图像的配对关注度相同，而非使用者对中性图像的关注度明显高于电子烟图像。所有三组对电子烟图像的关注度明显高于吸烟图像，电子烟使用者的偏差明显更大。在对吸烟和中性图像的配对注意力方面，三组之间没有差异。调节分析表明，对于偶尔使用者，但不是每日使用者，使用电子烟的年限减少了对中性图像相对于吸烟图像的偏见。
总的来说，结果表明电子烟使用者相对于非使用者对电子烟表现出更高的关注度，这可能会影响他们在现实环境中对电子烟线索的反应。对电子烟的 AB 没有转移到传统香烟线索上，这表明需要进一步研究以确定将电子烟转移到传统香烟的机制。
这是首次使用眼动跟踪技术检查非吸烟当前电子烟使用者对电子烟线索的注意偏向的研究。结果为与电子烟使用问题相关的文献增添了新内容，并表明日常和偶尔使用电子烟与电子烟的注意偏向有关。电子烟使用者存在注意偏向可能有助于解释电子烟戒烟率高的原因，并为在治疗电子烟使用问题中使用注意偏向修正提供了支持。
