Conflicting rewards: effects of task goals on attention for alcohol cues

ABSTRACT

Research has shown that temporary task goals capture more attention than negative, threatening cues, even in anxious individuals. In the current study, we investigated whether temporary task goals would also capture more attention than alcohol-related cues. In Experiment 1, 59 hazardous drinkers performed both a modified dot-probe and a flanker task in which temporary goal- and alcohol-relevant stimuli were presented together. Results of the dot-probe task confirmed an attentional bias towards goal-relevant stimuli in the presence of alcohol cues. This effect was absent in a modified flanker task, although there was a general slowing when the targets appeared on top of goal-relevant stimuli, suggesting that goal-related backgrounds captured more attention than alcohol backgrounds. In Experiment 2, we replicated the dot-probe procedure in 29 hazardous drinkers who had been exposed to a prime dose of alcohol prior to performing the task. Our findings indicate that temporary goal stimuli are more salient than alcohol cues, which might lead the way to novel clinical applications.

KEYWORDS:

• Attentional bias
• goals
• alcohol

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding & Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a VICI grant (453-08-001) awarded to Reinout W. Wiers by the Dutch National Science Foundation. The funding source had no other role in the research other than financial support. Bram Van Bockstaele is a postdoctoral researcher of the research priority area Yield of the University of Amsterdam.

Data availability statement

The data are available on the following OSF-page: osf.io/rmqdk.

Notes

1 SDC10889, SDC10903, SDC11635, SDC11488, SDC11574, SDC10705, SDC11184, SDC11349, SDC11485 and SDC11584.

2 SDC10758, SDC10759, SDC11444, SDC11373, SDC11591, SDC10744, SDC10734, SDC11445, SDC11370 and SDC 11594.

3 Due to a programming error, for 7 participants, 10 congruent and 10 incongruent alcohol + goal trials were presented without waiting for a response. As such, these participants completed 30 instead of 40 congruent and incongruent alcohol + goal trials. Exclusion of these participants affected neither the pattern nor the significance of the results.

4 Due to a programming error, 2 participants only completed 120 flanker and 120 goal trials. Exclusion of these participants affected neither the pattern nor the significance of the results.

5 We used default priors for our Bayesian analyses.

6 We interpreted the Bayes factors as follows: BF10 < 1/100 = Decisive evidence for H0; BF10 = 1/100–1/30 = Very strong evidence for H0; BF10 = 1/30–1/10 = Strong evidence for H0; BF10 = 1/10–1/3 = Substantial evidence for H0; BF10 = 1/3–1 = Anecdotal evidence for H0; BF10 = 1 = no evidence for either hypothesis; BF10 = 1–3 = Anecdotal evidence for H1; BF10 = 3–10 = Substantial evidence for H1; BF10 = 10–30 = Strong evidence for H1; BF10 = 30–100 = Very strong evidence for H1; BF10 > 100 = Decisive evidence for H1.