Attentional re-training decreases attentional bias in heavy drinkers without generalization.

Aims: To examine whether alcohol-related attentional bias (AB) can be reduced by training heavy drinkers to attend to soft drinks as an alternative to alcohol. Diminishing AB is important because AB has been suggested to be a significant factor in the development, maintenance and relapse of addictive behaviours. AB was trained in a clinically relevant design, and we studied the generalization of this training.

Heroin-related attentional bias and monthly frequency of heroin use are positively associated in attenders of a harm reduction service.

The relationship between heroin-related attentional bias (AB) and a proxy for dependence severity (monthly frequency of heroin use-injecting or inhaling) was measured in individuals attending a heroin harm reduction service. A flicker change blindness paradigm was employed in which change detection latencies were measured to either a heroin-related or to a neutral change made to a stimulus array containing an equal number of heroin-related and neutral words. Individuals given the heroin-related change to detect showed a positive relationship between heroin-related AB and the proxy for dependence severity; those given the neutral change showed a negative relationship.

Alcohol-related attentional bias in problem drinkers with the flicker change blindness paradigm.

The authors used a flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness as a more direct method of measuring attentional bias in problem drinkers in treatment than the previously used, modified Stroop, Posner, and dual-task paradigms. First, in an artificially constructed visual scene comprising digitized photographs of real alcohol-related and neutral objects, problem drinkers detected a change made to an alcohol-related object more quickly than to a neutral object. Age- and gender-matched social drinkers showed no such difference.

Sleep-related attentional bias in good, moderate, and poor (primary insomnia) sleepers.

Evidence was sought of an attentional bias toward a highly representative object of the bedroom environment in good, moderate, and poor (primary insomnia) sleepers. Using a flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness, the authors briefly presented a single scene comprising a group of bedroom environment and neutral objects to participants and then briefly replaced this scene with an identical scene containing a change made to either a bedroom environment or a neutral object. In a 3 x 2 entirely between-participants design, change-detection latencies revealed a sleep-related attentional bias in poor sleepers but not in good sleepers.

A pictorial Stroop paradigm reveals an alcohol attentional bias in heavier compared to lighter social drinkers.

The findings obtained with the textual Stroop paradigm, testing for an attentional bias towards alcohol stimuli in heavier compared to lighter social drinkers, are limited in number and inconsistent in outcome. Using a pictorial rather than textual Stroop paradigm for the first time in alcohol research, a significant alcohol attentional bias is reported in heavier social drinkers compared to lighter social drinking controls. According to Cohen's scheme, the signifant effect size is classified as 'large'.

Negative alcohol consumption outcome associations in young and mature adult social drinkers: a route to drinking restraint?

Alcohol 'cognitions' were explored using an implicit methodology [Stacy, Leigh and Weingardt, 1994]. In Study 1, an Associations Questionnaire was developed with young adult undergraduates (median=20 years) comprising culturally available (i.e.

Alcohol consumption increases attractiveness ratings of opposite-sex faces: a possible third route to risky sex.

Aims: To measure the effect of moderate alcohol consumption on males' and females' attractiveness ratings of unfamiliar male and female faces.

Participants: Eighty undergraduate volunteers were used in each of three experiments.

Design: Participants' ratings on a 1-7 scale was the dependent variable.

Changing expectancies: cognitive mechanisms and context effects.

This article presents the proceedings of a symposium at the 2002 RSA Meeting in San Francisco, organized by Reinout W. Wiers and Mark D. Wood.

A flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness reveals alcohol and cannabis information processing biases in social users.

Aim: To apply a new paradigm using transient changes to visual scenes to explore information processing biases relating to "social" levels of alcohol and cannabis use.

Participants: Male and female student volunteers (n = 200) not self-reporting substance-related problems.

Setting: Quiet testing areas throughout the university campus.

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.

Rationale: Understanding the cognitions underpinning substance use has stalled using the Stroop paradigm.

Objective: To employ a novel version of the flicker paradigm for induced change blindness to independently compare information processing biases in social users of alcohol and cannabis.

Method: Alcohol and cannabis experiments were independently run.