Department for Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Germany.
Department for Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Germany.
Biol Psychol. 2022 Jul;172:108381. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108381. Epub 2022 Jun 14.
Cognitive biases (among them attentional bias, AB) are considered an important factor in the development, maintenance, and recurrence of addiction. However, traditional paradigms to measure AB have been criticized regarding external validity and methodical issues. Therefore, and because the neurophysiological correlates of anti-saccade tasks are known, we implemented a novel smoking anti-saccade task in virtual reality (VR) to measure AB and inhibitory control in different contexts and with higher ecological validity.
Smokers (n = 20) and non-smokers (n = 20) were tested on a classic pro- and anti-saccade task, a VR anti-saccade task and a VR attention fixation task (all containing smoking-related and neutral stimuli) while eye-tracking data was collected. Two VR contexts (park and office room) were applied.
Saccade latencies were significantly higher for the smoking group in the VR anti-saccade task. However, this effect did not differ between smoking-related and neutral stimuli, thus overall no AB was observed. Instead, AB was only present in the park context. Additionally, saccade latencies and error rates were significantly higher in the park context.
Results indicate impaired inhibitory control in smokers relative to non-smokers. The lack of evidence for a general AB might be due to the lower severity of smoking dependence in the smoking sample. Instead, results suggest context specificity of AB. Implications for smoking cessation interventions in the field of inhibitory control training and attention bias modification are discussed.
认知偏差（包括注意偏差，AB）被认为是成瘾发展、维持和复发的一个重要因素。然而，传统的测量 AB 的范式在外部有效性和方法学问题上受到了批评。因此，由于知道反扫视任务的神经生理学相关性，我们在虚拟现实 (VR) 中实施了一种新的吸烟反扫视任务，以在不同的环境中测量 AB 和抑制控制，并具有更高的生态有效性。
吸烟者 (n=20) 和非吸烟者 (n=20) 在经典的赞成和反对扫视任务、VR 反扫视任务和 VR 注意固定任务上进行了测试（均包含与吸烟相关的和中性刺激），同时收集眼动追踪数据。应用了两个 VR 环境（公园和办公室）。
在 VR 反扫视任务中，吸烟者的扫视潜伏期明显更长。然而，这种效果在与吸烟相关的和中性刺激之间没有差异，因此总体上没有观察到 AB。相反，AB 仅出现在公园环境中。此外，在公园环境中，扫视潜伏期和错误率明显更高。
结果表明吸烟者的抑制控制能力相对较差。缺乏一般 AB 的证据可能是由于吸烟样本中吸烟依赖的严重程度较低。相反，结果表明 AB 具有环境特异性。讨论了在抑制控制训练和注意偏差修正领域中，对吸烟干预的启示。
