Department of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Department of Psychology, UCAM Catholic University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain.
Eur Addict Res. 2024;30(2):65-79. doi: 10.1159/000536252. Epub 2024 Feb 29.
Attentional bias (AB) is an implicit selective attention toward processing disorder-significant information while neglecting other environmental cues. Considerable empirical evidence highlights the clinical implication of AB in the onset and maintenance of substance use disorder. An innovative method to explore direct measures of AB relies on the eye-movement activity using technologies like eye-tracking (ET). Despite the growing interest regarding the clinical relevance of AB in the spectrum of alcohol consumption, more research is needed to fully determine the AB patterns and its transfer from experimental to clinical applications. The current study consisted of three consecutive experiments. The first experiment aimed to design an ad-hoc visual attention task (VAT) consisting of alcohol-related and neutral images using a nonclinical sample (n = 15). The objective of the second and third experiments was to analyze whether the effect of type of image (alcohol-related vs. neutral images) on AB toward alcohol content using the VAT developed in the first experiment was different for type of drinker (light vs. heavy drinker in the second experiment [n = 30], and occasional social drinkers versus alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients in the third experiment [n = 48]).
Areas of interest (AOIs) within each type of image (neutral and alcohol-related) were designed and raw ET-based data were subsequently extracted through specific software analyses. For experiment 1, attention maps were created and processed for each image. For experiments 2 and 3, data on ET variables were gathered and subsequently analyzed through a two-way ANOVA with the aim of examining the effects of the type of image and drinker on eye-movement activity.
There was a statistically significant interaction effect between type of image and type of drinker (light vs. heavy drinker in experiment 2, F(1, 56) = 13.578, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.195, and occasional social drinker versus AUD patients in the experiment 3, F(1, 92) = 35.806, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.280) for "first fixation" with large effect sizes, but not for "number of fixations" and "dwell time." The simple main effect of type of image on mean "first fixation" score for AUD patients was not statistically significant.
The data derived from the experiments indicated the importance of AB in sub-clinical populations: heavy drinkers displayed an implicit preference for alcohol-related images compared to light drinkers. Nevertheless, AB fluctuations in patients with AUD compared to the control group were found. AUD patients displayed an early interest in alcohol images, followed by an avoidance attentional processing of alcohol-related images. The results are discussed in light of recent literature in the field.
注意偏差（AB）是一种对处理障碍显著信息的隐含选择性注意，而忽略其他环境线索。大量的实证证据突出了 AB 在物质使用障碍的发生和维持中的临床意义。一种探索 AB 直接测量的创新方法依赖于使用眼动追踪（ET）等技术的眼球运动活动。尽管 AB 在酒精消费谱系中的临床相关性越来越受到关注，但仍需要更多的研究来完全确定 AB 模式及其从实验到临床应用的转移。本研究由三个连续的实验组成。第一个实验旨在设计一个特殊的视觉注意任务（VAT），该任务使用非临床样本（n=15）包含酒精相关和中性图像。第二个和第三个实验的目的是分析使用第一个实验中开发的 VAT，图像类型（酒精相关图像与中性图像）对 AB 指向酒精含量的影响是否因饮酒者类型（第二个实验中的轻度和重度饮酒者[n=30]，以及第三个实验中的偶发性社交饮酒者与酒精使用障碍（AUD）患者[n=48]）而异。
为每个类型的图像（中性和酒精相关）设计了感兴趣区域（AOIs），并随后通过特定的软件分析提取基于原始 ET 的数据。对于实验 1，为每个图像创建并处理了注意图。对于实验 2 和 3，收集了眼动变量的数据，并随后通过双向方差分析进行分析，目的是检查图像类型和饮酒者对眼球运动活动的影响。
在实验 2 中，轻饮酒者与重饮酒者（实验 2）和偶发性社交饮酒者与 AUD 患者（实验 3）之间，图像类型和饮酒者类型之间存在统计学上显著的交互效应（F（1,56）=13.578，p <0.001，部分η2 =0.195，F（1,92）=35.806，p <0.001，部分η2 =0.280），用于“首次注视”，效应量较大，但“注视次数”和“注视时间”则不然。AUD 患者的“首次注视”平均分数的简单主效应在统计学上不显著。
实验得出的数据表明 AB 在亚临床人群中的重要性：与轻饮酒者相比，重度饮酒者对酒精相关图像表现出隐含的偏好。然而，在 AUD 患者与对照组之间发现了 AB 的波动。AUD 患者对酒精图像表现出早期的兴趣，然后是对酒精相关图像的回避注意处理。结果是根据该领域的最新文献进行讨论的。
