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  • TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP ATTENTIONAL BIASES FOR SMOKING-RELATED STIMULI (Accepted Feb 22 2001)

    Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Addictive Bahviors. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Addictive Behaviors, 118, 2021 DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106886

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    Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

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Top-down and bottom-up attentional biases for smoking-related stimuli: Comparing dependent and non-dependent smokers

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Article number106886
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>31/07/2021
<mark>Journal</mark>Addictive Behaviors
Volume118
Number of pages7
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date4/03/21
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Introduction: Substance use causes attentional biases for substance-related stimuli. Both bottom-up (preferential processing) and top-down (inhibitory control) processes are involved in attentional biases. We explored these aspects of attentional bias by using dependent and non-dependent cigarette smokers in order to see whether these two groups would differ in terms of general inhibitory control, bottom-up attentional bias, and top-down attentional biases. This enables us to see whether consumption behaviour would affect these cognitive responses to smoking-related stimuli. Methods: Smokers were categorised as either dependent (N=26) or non-dependent (N=34) smokers. A further group of non-smokers (N=32) were recruited to act as controls. Participants then completed a behavioural inhibition task with general stimuli, a smoking-related eye tracking version of the dot-probe task, and an eye-tracking inhibition task with smoking-related stimuli. Results: Results indicated that dependent smokers had decreased inhibition and increased attentional bias for smoking-related stimuli (and not control stimuli). By contrast, a decreased inhibition for smoking-related stimuli (in comparison to control stimuli) was not observed for non-dependent smokers. Conclusions: Preferential processing of substance-related stimuli may indicate usage of a substance, whereas poor inhibitory control for substance-related stimuli may only emerge if dependence develops. The results suggest that how people engage with substance abuse is important for top-down attentional biases.

Bibliographic note

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Addictive Bahviors. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Addictive Behaviors, 118, 2021 DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106886