Attentional bias variability and cued attentional bias for alcohol stimuli

Abstract

Alcohol use is associated with attentional biases for alcohol-related stimuli, as it has been measured via effects on mean performance measures in dot-probe tasks. However, the variability of attentional biases may contain essential information related to behavior and symptoms. Bias variability refers to short-time scale fluctuation in bias to and from salient stimuli, measurable within the duration of a task. The first aim of the current study was to relate attentional bias variability for alcohol cues to risky drinking behavior. The second aim was to explore a conditioned-cue version of the dot probe in which arbitrary cues signaled the location of subsequent alcoholic or nonalcoholic pictorial cues, which was designed to avoid sources of interference that could play a role in the normal dot probe. Results showed strong associations between measures of attentional bias variability and drinking behavior. Effects in the conditioned cues version of the task were weaker and appeared to require a longer training period. Nevertheless, heavier drinkers tended to respond too late to probes appearing at locations of cues predicting the appearance of nonalcohol stimuli. This suggests that predictive cues can capture an aspect of attentional processes related to alcohol use. The results indicate that attentional bias variability is worth studying further. It may be fruitful for theory and future research to focus on fluctuations in attention rather than consistent tendencies toward or away from alcohol. The potential use of predictive cues remains uncertain. Such designs may require relatively long training periods but could prove methodologically and theoretically useful.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• attentional bias
• attentional bias variability
• conditioned cues
• dot probe
• risky drinking

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflict of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of this article.