The effects of nicotine dose expectancy and motivationally relevant distracters on vigilance. Psychol Addict Behav 2014 Sep;28(3):752-60
Date
05/21/2014Pubmed ID
24841184Pubmed Central ID
PMC4518546DOI
10.1037/a0035122Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84925810050 6 CitationsAbstract
The imminence of drug use (i.e., drug availability) has been found to be related to intensity of drug craving, but its effects on attentional bias to drug cues are unclear. This study investigated the effects of nicotine availability on attentional bias to smoking, affective, and neutral cues in a sample of adult smokers during a vigilance task. At the beginning of each of 4 laboratory sessions, overnight nicotine-deprived smokers (n = 51) were instructed that they would smoke a cigarette containing either nicotine (Told-NIC) or no nicotine (Told-DENIC) after completing the rapid visual information processing task with central emotional distracters (RVIP-CED). The RVIP-CED presented digits at a rapid pace, with participants instructed to respond with button presses to every third consecutive even or odd digit. Some digits were preceded by smoking, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral distracter slides. During Told-NIC conditions, participants produced significantly longer reaction time (RT) latency than during Told-DENIC conditions. RT sensitivity (d'), a measure of the ability to discriminate true positives from false positives, was significantly lower during the Told-NIC than during the Told-DENIC conditions to targets following cigarette distracters. These results suggest that nicotine-deprived smokers expecting to imminently smoke a cigarette experience greater distraction, particularly to smoking-related stimuli, than when expecting to smoke a denicotinized cigarette.
Author List
Robinson JD, Engelmann JM, Cui Y, Versace F, Waters AJ, Gilbert DG, Gritz ER, Cinciripini PMMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdultAnticipation, Psychological
Arousal
Attention
Craving
Cues
Emotions
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Motivation
Nicotine
Nicotinic Agonists
Psychomotor Performance
Reaction Time
Smoking
Substance Withdrawal Syndrome
Substance-Related Disorders
Tobacco Products
Tobacco Use Disorder
Young Adult
