Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Attentional bias toward cigarette cues in active smokers

  • original investigation
  • Published:
Psychopharmacology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Rationale

While it is well documented that substance users exhibit attentional bias toward addiction-related stimuli, the exact mechanism remains unclear.

Objectives

To differentiate between distinct aspects of attentional allocation in the smoking-cue attentional bias observed in smokers.

Methods

Active smokers (AS) and non-smoking controls completed spatial cueing tasks with pairs of smoking and neutral pictorial cues to measure attentional capture, and an attentional blink task with either a smoking or neutral image appearing behind the first target (T1) to measure aspects of attention separate from capture. In addition, we tested groups of sports enthusiasts, and non-enthusiasts in corresponding tasks replacing smoking images with sports-related images to address the possibility that effects found in the smoking study were due simply to greater stimulus familiarity.

Results

Smoking cues reflexively capture smokers' attention, as AS showed a greater bias toward smoking cues in short stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA; the time between the onset of two stimuli) trials, but not in trials with a longer SOA. These effects represent a facilitation of responding to smoking- versus neutral-cued targets, and were absent in the sports control task. The attentional blink effects were similar in the smoking- and sports-cue experiments: the special T1 resulted in better detection of the second target for the smokers and sports enthusiasts.

Conclusions

Stimulus familiarity may contribute to some aspects of attentional bias in regular nicotine users, but selective quick capture of attention by smoking cues may be nicotine-habit specific.

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

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Attwood AS, O'Sullivan H, Leonards U, Mackintosh B, Munafó MR (2008) Attentional bias training and cue reactivity in cigarette smokers. Addiction 103:1875–1882

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bar M, Kassam KS, Ghuman AS, Boshyan J, Schmid AM, Dale AM, Hämäläinen MS, Marinkovic K, Schacter DL, Rosen BR, Halgren E (2006) Top-down facilitation of visual recognition. P Natl Acad Sci 103:449–454

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bonnel A-M, Prinzmetal W (1998) Dividing attention between the color and the shape of objects. Percept Psychophys 60:113–124

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Boyer M, Dickerson M (2003) Attentional bias and addictive behaviour: automaticity in a gambling-specific modified Stroop task. Addiction 98:61–70

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bradley BP, Mogg K, Millar NH (2000) Covert and overt orienting of attention to emotional faces in anxiety. Cogn Emotion 14:789–808

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • 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 

  • Bradley B, Field M, Mogg K, De Houwer J (2004) Attentional and evaluative biases for smoking cues in nicotine dependence: component processes of biases in visual orienting. Behav Pharmacol 15:29–36

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Broadbent DE, Broadbent MH (1987) From detection to identification: response to multiple targets in rapid serial visual presentation. Percept Psychophys 42:105–113

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chanon VW, Hopfinger JB (2008) Memory's grip on attention: the influence of item memory on the allocation of attention. Vis Cogn 16:325–340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chun MM, Potter MC (1995) A two-stage model for multiple target detection in rapid serial visual presentation. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 21:109–127

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Copersino ML, Serper MR, Vadhan N, Goldberg BR, Richarme D, Chou JC, Stitzer M, Cancro R (2004) Cocaine craving and attentional bias in cocaine-dependent schizophrenic patients. Psychiatry Res 128:209–218

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Corbetta M, Tansy AP, Stanley CM, Astafiev SV, Snyder AZ, Shulman GL (2005) A functionalMRI study of preparatory signals for spatial location and objects. Neuropsychologia 43:2041–2056

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coward RS, Poliakoff E, O'Boyle DJ, Lowe C (2004) The contribution of non-ocular response inhibition to visual inhibition of return. Exp Brain Res 155:124–128

    Article  CAS  PubMed  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 

  • Cox WM, Pothos EM, Hosier SG (2007) Cognitive-motivational predictors of excessive drinkers' success in changing. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 192:499–510

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Delorme A, Richard G, Fabre-Thorpe M (2000) Ultra-rapid categorisation of natural scenes does not rely on colour cues: a study in monkeys and humans. Vis Res 40:2187–2200

    Article  CAS  PubMed  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 

  • 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 

  • Fabre-Thorpe M, Richard G, Thorpe SJ (1998) Rapid categorization of natural images by rhesus monkeys. NeuroReport 9:303–308

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fan J, McCandliss BD, Sommer T, Raz A, Posner MI (2002) Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. J Cogn Neurosci 14:340–347

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Eastwood B (2005) Experimental manipulation of attentional bias increases the motivation to drink alcohol. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 183:350–357

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Mogg K, Bradley BP (2005a) Craving and cognitive biases for alcohol cues in social drinkers. Alcohol Alcohol 40:504–510

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

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

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Mogg K, Zetteler J, Bradley BP (2004) 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, Eastwood B, Bradley BP, Mogg K (2006) Selective processing of cannabis cues in regular cannabis users. Drug Alcohol Depend 85:75–82

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Field M, Munafó MR, Franken IH (2009) A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between attentional bias and subjective craving in substance abuse. Psychol Bull 135:589–607

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Foulds J, Stapleton J, Swettenham J, Bell N, McSorley K, Russell MA (1996) Cognitive performance effects of subcutaneous nicotine in smokers and never-smokers. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 127:31–38

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franken IH, Kroon LY, Wiers RW, Jansen A (2000) Selective cognitive processing of drug cues in heroin dependence. J Psychopharmacol 14:395–400

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hester R, Dixon V, Garavan H (2006) A consistent attentional bias for drug-related material in active cocaine users across word and picture versions of the emotional Stroop task. Drug Alcohol Depend 81:251–257

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hopfinger JB, Mangun GR (1998) Reflexive attention modulates processing of visual stimuli in human extrastriate cortex. Psychol Sci 9:441–447

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hopfinger JB, Maxwell JS (2005) Appearing and disappearing stimuli trigger a reflexive modulation of visual cortical activity. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res 25:48–56

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hopfinger JB, West VM (2006) Interactions between endogenous and exogenous attention on cortical visual processing. Neuroimage 31:774–789

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Istvan J, Matarazzo JD (1984) Tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine use—a review of their interrelationships. Psychol Bull 95:301–326

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jones BC, Jones BT, Blundell L, Bruce G (2002) Social users of alcohol and cannabis who detect substance-related changes in a change blindness paradigm report higher levels of use than those detecting substance-neutral changes. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 165:93–96

    Article  CAS  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 

  • Jones BT, Bruce G, Livingstone S, Reed E (2006) Alcohol-related attentional bias in problem drinkers with the flicker change blindness paradigm. Psychol Addict Behav 20:171–177

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jonides J, Yantis S (1988) Uniqueness of abrupt visual onset in capturing attention. Percept Psychophys 43:346–354

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Klein RM (2000) Inhibition of return. Trends Cogn Sci 4:138–147

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Koelega HS (1993) Stimulant drugs and vigilance performance: a review. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 111:1–16

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Koster EH, Crombez G, Verschuere B, De Houwer J (2004) Selective attention to threat in the dot probe paradigm: differentiating vigilance and difficulty to disengage. Behav Res Ther 42:1183–1192

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Liu N, Li B, Sun N, Ma Y (2008) Effects of addiction-associated and affective stimuli on the attentional blink in a sample of abstinent opiate dependent patients. J Psychopharmacol 22:64–70

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lorist MM, Snel J, Kok A, Mulder G (1994) Influence of caffeine on selective attention in well-rested and fatigued subjects. Psychophysiology 31:525–534

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

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

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mancuso G, Warburton DM, Melen M, Sherwood N, Tirelli E (1999) Selective effects of nicotine on attentional processes. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 146:199–204

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Marissen MA, Franken IH, Waters AJ, Blanken P, van den Brink W, Hendriks VM (2006) Attentional bias predicts heroin relapse following treatment. Addiction 101:1306–1312

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McCusker CG, Gettings B (1997) Automaticity of cognitive biases in addictive behaviours: further evidence with gamblers. Br J Clin Psychol 36(Pt 4):543–554

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mogg K, Bradley BP (2002) Selective processing of smoking-related cues in smokers: manipulation of deprivation level and comparison of three measures of processing bias. J Psychopharmacol 16:385–392

    Article  PubMed  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 

  • Mogg K, Field M, Bradley BP (2005) Attentional and approach biases for smoking cues in smokers: an investigation of competing theoretical views of addiction. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 180:333–341

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Most SB, Junge JA (2008) Don't look back: retroactive, dynamic costs and benefits of emotional capture. Vis Cogn 16:262–278

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Most SB, Chun MM, Widders DM, Zald DH (2005) Attentional rubbernecking: cognitive control and personality in emotion-induced blindness. In, pp 654–661: Psychonomic Soc Inc

  • Most SB, Smith SD, Cooter AB, Levy BN, Zald DH (2007) The naked truth: positive, arousing distractors impair rapid target perception. Cogn Emotion 21:964–981

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Muller MM, Andersen SK, Keil A (2008) Time course of competition for visual processing resources between emotional pictures and foreground task. Cereb Cortex 18:1892–1899

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Munafo MR, Johnstone EC, Mackintosh B (2005) Association of serotonin transporter genotype with selective processing of smoking-related stimuli in current smokers and ex-smokers. Nicotine Tob Res 7:773–778

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Newhouse PA, Potter A, Singh A (2004) Effects of nicotinic stimulation on cognitive performance. Curr Opin Pharmacol 4:36–46

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Noel X, Colmant M, Van Der Linden M, Bechara A, Bullens Q, Hanak C, Verbanck P (2006) Time course of attention for alcohol cues in abstinent alcoholic patients: the role of initial orienting. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 30:1871–1877

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • O'Craven KM, Downing PE, Kanwisher N (1999) fRMI evidence for objects as the units of attentional selection. Nature 401:584–587

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Parks EL, Hopfinger JB (2008) Hold it! Memory affects attentional dwell time. Psychon Bull Rev 15:1128–1134

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pekkanen J, Kuulasmaa K, Evans A, Zhang M for the WHO MONICA Project (1992) Quality assessment of smoking data in the first surveys of the WHO MONICA Project. MONICA Memo 209A, January

  • Posner M, Cohen Y (1984) Components of visual orienting. In: Bouma H, Bouwhis D (eds) Attent perform vol. X. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, pp 531–556

    Google Scholar 

  • Posner MI, Walker JA, Friedrich FJ, Rafal RD (1984) Effects of parietal injury on covert orienting of attention. J Neurosci 4:1863–1874

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pratt J, McAuliffe J (2001) The effects of onsets and offsets on visual attention. Psychological Research 65:185–191

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Raymond JE, Shapiro KL, Arnell KM (1992) Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: an attentional blink? J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 18:849–860

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Reeves A, Fuller H, Fine EM (2005) The role of attention in binding shape to color. Vis Res 45:3343–3355

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson TE, Berridge KC (1993) The neural basis of drug craving: an incentive-sensitization theory of addiction. Brain Res Brain Res Rev 18:247–291

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sakurai Y, Kanazawa I (2002) Acute effects of cigarettes in non-deprived smokers on memory, calculation and executive functions. Hum Psychopharmacol 17:369–373

    Article  PubMed  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  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stetter F, Ackermann K, Bizer A, Straube ER, Mann K (1995) Effects of disease-related cues in alcoholic inpatients: results of a controlled “Alcohol Stroop” study. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 19:593–599

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stolerman IP, Mirza NR, Shoaib M (1995) Nicotine psychopharmacology: addiction, cognition and neuroadaptation. Med Res Rev 15:47–72

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Streeter CC, Terhune DB, Whitfield TH, Gruber S, Sarid-Segal O, Silveri MM, Tzilos G, Afshar M, Rouse ED, Tian H, Renshaw PF, Ciraulo DA, Yurgelun-Todd DA (2008) Performance on the Stroop predicts treatment compliance in cocaine-dependent individuals. Neuropsychopharmacology 33:827–836

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Theeuwes J (1991) Exogenous and endogenous control of attention—the effect of visual onsets and offsets. Percept Psychophys 49:83–90

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tibboel H, De Houwer J, Field M (2009) Reduced attentional blink for alcohol-related stimuli in heavy social drinkers. J Psychopharmacol

  • Townshend JM, Duka T (2001) Attentional bias associated with alcohol cues: differences between heavy and occasional social drinkers. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 157:67–74

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Waters AJ, Feyerabend C (2000) Determinants and effects of attentional bias in smokers. Psychol Addict Behav 14:111–120

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wesnes K, Warburton DM (1984) The effects of cigarettes of varying yield on rapid information processing performance. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 82:338–342

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yeomans MR, Javaherian S, Tovey HM, Stafford LD (2005) Attentional bias for caffeine-related stimuli in high but not moderate or non-caffeine consumers. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 181:477–485

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou B (2008) Disentangling perceptual and motor components in inhibition of return. Cogn Process 9:175–187

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors have no conflict of interest to report. Each participant gave signed informed consent before any sessions were begun, and APA human subjects research guidelines were followed. The experiments were approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and comply with the current laws of the United States. This work was supported by Award Number KL2RR025746 from the National Center for Research Resources (CAB) and F32DA025442 (VWC). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Center for Research Resources or the National Institutes of Health.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB 3270, Davie Hall, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3270, USA

    Vicki W. Chanon, Chandler R. Sours & Charlotte A. Boettiger

  2. Biomedical Research Imaging Center, Bowels Center for Alcohol Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB 3270, Davie Hall, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3270, USA

    Charlotte A. Boettiger

  3. Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB 3270, Davie Hall, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3270, USA

    Charlotte A. Boettiger

Authors
  1. Vicki W. Chanon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Chandler R. Sours
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Charlotte A. Boettiger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vicki W. Chanon.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

ESM 1

(DOC 26 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Chanon, V.W., Sours, C.R. & Boettiger, C.A. Attentional bias toward cigarette cues in active smokers. Psychopharmacology 212, 309–320 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-010-1953-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-010-1953-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation