Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Experimental manipulation of attentional bias increases the motivation to drink alcohol

  • OriginalPaper
  • Published:
Psychopharmacology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Rationale

Attentional bias for alcohol-related cues is associated with the motivation to drink alcohol, possibly because attentional bias increases craving.

Objectives

We examined whether an experimentally induced attentional bias would influence subjective and behavioural indices of the motivation to drink.

Methods

Heavy social drinkers (N=40) completed an attentional training procedure, in which half of the participants were trained to direct their attention towards alcohol-related cues (‘attend alcohol’), and half of the participants were trained to direct their attention away from alcohol-related cues (‘avoid alcohol’). After attentional training, participants rated their urge to drink alcohol, and the amount of beer consumed during a taste test was measured.

Results

The attentional training procedure produced significant changes in attentional bias in the predicted direction in both experimental groups. Attentional training produced an increase in the urge to drink alcohol in the attend alcohol group, and the attend alcohol group consumed more beer than the avoid alcohol group during the taste test.

Conclusions

These results suggest that a potentiated attentional bias for alcohol-related cues can increase the motivation to drink alcohol. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Upon arrival at the laboratory, four participants reported levels of alcohol consumption that were slightly below this level. However, the results of all analyses were unaffected by the exclusion of these four participants, so they were retained in the study. Furthermore, across the entire sample, only one participant had a score below 8 on the AUDIT, which suggests that the majority of participants were ‘hazardous drinkers’ (see Babor et al. 2001).

References

  • Amir N, Beard C, Klumpp H, Elias J, Brady R, Hewett J (2004) Modification of attentional bias in social phobia: change in attention, generalizability across paradigms, and change in symptoms. Paper presented during the 34th annual congress of the European Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Therapies, Manchester, 9–11 Sept 2004

  • Babor TF, Higgins-Biddle JC, Saunders JB, Monteiro MG (2001) The alcohol use disorders identification test: guidelines for use in primary care, 2nd edn. World Health Organisation, Geneva

  • Bradley BP, Mogg K, Wright T, Field M (2003) Attentional bias in drug dependence: vigilance for cigarette-related cues in smokers. Psychol Addict Behav 17:66–72

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carter BL, Tiffany ST (1999) Meta-analysis of cue-reactivity in addiction research. Addiction 94:327–340

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cox WM, Hogan LM, Kristian MR, Race JH (2002) Alcohol attentional bias as a predictor of alcohol abusers' treatment outcome. Drug Alcohol Depend 68:237–243

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • de Jong PJ, Kindt M, Roefs A (2005) Do implicit drug-related cognitions have causal effects on craving and substance misuse? Findings from experimental psychopathology. In: Wiers R, Stacy A (eds) Handbook of implicit cognition and addiction. Sage, Thousand Oaks (in press)

  • Derryberry D, Reed MA (2002) Anxiety-related attentional biases and their regulation by attentional control. J Abnorm Psychol 111:225–236

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • de Wit H, Chutuape MA (1993) Increased ethanol choice in social drinkers following ethanol preload. Behav Pharmacol 4:29–36

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Drobes DJ, Thomas SE (1999) Assessing craving for alcohol. Alcohol Res Health 23:179–186

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Duka T, Townshend JM (2004) The priming effect of alcohol pre-load on attentional bias to alcohol-related stimuli. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 176:353–361

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards G (1996) Sensible drinking. Br Med J 312:1

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ehrman RN, Robbins SJ, Bromwell MA, Lankford ME, Monterosso JR, O'Brien CP (2002) Comparing attentional bias to smoking cues in current smokers, former smokers, and non-smokers using a dot-probe task. Drug Alcohol Depend 67:185–191

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Mogg K, Zetteler J, Bradley BP (2004a) Attentional biases for alcohol cues in heavy and light social drinkers: the roles of initial orienting and maintained attention. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 176:88–93

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Mogg K, Bradley BP (2004b) Eye movements to smoking-related cues: effects of nicotine deprivation. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 173:116–123

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Mogg K, Bradley BP (2005a) Alcohol increases cognitive biases for smoking cues in smokers. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 180:63–72

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Mogg K, Bradley BP (2005b) Attention to drug-related cues in drug abuse and addiction: component processes. In: Wiers R, Stacy A (eds) Handbook of implicit cognition and addiction. Sage, Thousand Oaks (in press)

  • Field M, Mogg K, Bradley BP (2005c) Craving and cognitive biases for alcohol cues in social drinkers. Alcohol Alcohol (in press). DOI 10.11093/alcalc/agh213

  • Franken IHA (2003) Drug craving and addiction: integrating psychological and neuropsychopharmacological approaches. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 27:563–579

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbs M, Remington B, Glautier S (2005) Dissociation of wanting and liking for alcohol in humans: a test of the incentive-sensitisation theory. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 178:493–499

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Jones BT, Schulze D (2000) Alcohol-related words of positive affect are more accessible in social drinkers' memory than are other words when sip-primed by alcohol. Addict Res 8:221–232

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones BT, Jones BC, Smith H, Copley N (2003) A flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness reveals alcohol and cannabis information processing biases in social users. Addiction 98:235–244

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Love A, James D, Willner P (1998) A comparison of two alcohol craving questionnaires. Addiction 93:1091–1102

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lubman DI, Peters LA, Mogg K, Bradley BP, Deakin JFW (2000)Attentional bias for drug cues in opiate dependence. Psychol Med 30:169–175

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • MacLeod C, Rutherford E, Campbell L, Ebsworthy G, Holker L (2002) Selective attention and emotional vulnerability: assessing the causal basis of their association through the experimental manipulation of attentional bias. J Abnorm Psychol 111:107–123

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mathews A, MacLeod C (1985) Selective processing of threat cues in anxiety states. Behav Res Ther 23:563–569

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mathews A, MacLeod C (2002) Induced processing biases have causal effects on anxiety. Cogn Emot 16:331–354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mattia JI, Heimberg RG, Hope DA (1993) The revised Stroop colour-naming task in social phobics. Behav Res Ther 31:305–314

    Google Scholar 

  • Millisecond Software (2002) Inquisit 1.33 (computer software). Millisecond Software, Seattle

  • Mogg K, Bradley BP (1998) A cognitive-motivational analysis of anxiety. Behav Res Ther 36:809–848

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mogg K, Bradley BP, Field M, De Houwer J (2003) Eye movements to smoking-related pictures in smokers: relationship between attentional biases and implicit and explicit measures of stimulus valence. Addiction 98:825–836

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson TE, Berridge KC (2003) Addiction. Annu Rev Psychol 54:25–53

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rosse RB, Johri S, Kendrick K, Hess AL, Alim TN, Miller M, Deutsch SI (1997) Preattentive and attentive eye movements during visual scanning of a cocaine cue: correlation with intensity of cocaine cravings. J Neuropsychiatry 9:91–93

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma D, Albery IP, Cook C (2001) Selective attentional bias to alcohol related stimuli in problem drinkers and non-problem drinkers. Addiction 96:285–295

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Townshend JM, Duka T (2001). Attentional bias associated with alcohol cues: differences between heavy and occasional social drinkers. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 157:67–64

    Google Scholar 

  • Townshend JM, Duka T (2003) Avoidance of alcohol-related cues by alcoholic inpatients undergoing detoxification. Behav Pharmacol 14(Suppl 1):S69

    Google Scholar 

  • Watts F, McKenna FP, Sharrock R, Trezise L (1986) Colour-naming of phobia-related words. Br J Psychol 77:97–108

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wiers RW, de Jong PJ, Havermans R, Jelicic M (2004) How to change implicit drug use-related cognitions in prevention: a transdisciplinary integration of findings from experimental psychopathology, social cognition, memory, and experimental learning psychology. Subst Use Misuse 39:1625–1684

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by a research grant from the British Academy (reference LRG-37196) awarded to the first author.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Eleanor Rathbone Building,Bedford Street South, Liverpool, L69 7ZA, UK

    Matt Field & Brian Eastwood

Authors
  1. Matt Field
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Brian Eastwood
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matt Field.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Field, M., Eastwood, B. Experimental manipulation of attentional bias increases the motivation to drink alcohol. Psychopharmacology 183, 350–357 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-005-0202-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-005-0202-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation