Effect of Cue Exposure, Urge to Smoke, and Nicotine Deprivation on Cognitive Performance in Smokers.

The primary aim of this investigation was to test the hypothesis that the urge to smoke interferes directly with cognitive performance. Fifty-four smokers were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: (a) ad lib, (b) deprived, or (c) nicotine patch. Participants rated their urge to smoke on continuous visual analogue scales. Cognitive performance was determined by measuring reaction times (RTs) on a Sternberg task. The deprived group reported a higher urge and had longer RTs than the ad lib group when exposed to smoking-related cues. However, the nicotine patch group reported a higher urge in the absence of longer RTs. The results indicated that nicotine deprivation affects cognitive performance and that the urge to smoke only partially mediated RTs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Movie exposure to alcohol cues and adolescent alcohol problems: A longitudinal analysis in a national sample.

The authors tested a theoretical model of how exposure to alcohol cues in movies predicts level of alcohol use (ever use plus ever and recent binge drinking) and alcohol-related problems. A national sample of younger adolescents was interviewed by telephone with 4 repeated assessments spaced at 8-month intervals. A structural equation modeling analysis performed for ever-drinkers at Time 3 (N = 961) indicated that, controlling for a number of covariates, movie alcohol exposure at Time 1 was related to increases in peer alcohol use and adolescent alcohol use at Time 2. Movie exposure had indirect effects to alcohol use and problems at Times 3 and 4 through these pathways, with direct effects to problems from Time 1 rebelliousness and Time 2 movie exposure also found. Prospective risk-promoting effects were also found for alcohol expectancies, peer alcohol use, and availability of alcohol in the home; protective effects were found for mother's responsiveness and for adolescent's school performance and self-control. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cue Patterns and Alcohol Expectancies: How Slight Differences in Stimuli Can Measurably Change Cognition.

Expectancy theory states that environmental cues provide the information necessary for organisms to predict what is upcoming in the world. Because this information is vast, mechanisms of simplification such as identification of cue patterns are thought to be necessary. This study tested the influence of 2 different cue patterns on alcohol-related cognition. By simply changing the 1st word (milk vs. beer) on a study list comprising alcohol expectancy and grocery words, content differences in recalled words were demonstrated. Additionally, differences were a product of experience with alcohol. Findings were consistent with what would be predicted by cognitive concepts such as hybrid cuing and point to the need to take context and individual experience into account when studying memory processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol expectancies and reactivity to alcohol-related and affective cues.

Recent conceptualizations of alcohol expectancies relate cognitive schemas to their neurobiological underpinnings; cue reactivity paradigms lend themselves well to testing this broadened conceptual framework. In the present study, we examined the relationship between self-reported alcohol expectancies and responses to alcohol-related and affective picture cues among fifty-five young adults. In addition to traditional subjective and psychophysiological indices of cue reactivity, the startle eyeblink reflex was obtained during picture cue presentations to address both attention-arousal (early probes) and affective-motivational (late probes) aspects of cue processing. Analyses indicated that participants reporting greater positive, arousing, and social alcohol expectancies rated alcohol cues as more pleasant, arousing, and craving-inducing. In addition, participants displayed inhibited startle reactivity to late alcohol cue probes, indicative of an appetitive reaction. Finally, startle responding to early probes indicated that participants with greater alcohol expectancies displayed blunted attention to negative affect cues. Findings are discussed in terms of the utility of the startle reflex and cue reactivity paradigms for clarifying the relationship between alcohol expectancies and motivated attention to salient cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of Substance Cue Reactivity: Advances in Reliability, Specificity, and Validity.

An arousal-control and cross-over design was used to evaluate the reliability, specificity, and validity of the Normative Appetitive Picture System (NAPS), a cue exposure protocol with sets of visual alcohol, cigarette, and control cues. The authors also examined the utility of conceptualizing cue reactivity as a multidimensional phenomenon involving independent approach and avoidance dimensions. University student participants (n=369) rated multiple cue images in terms of arousing properties and capacity to elicit separate approach and avoidance inclinations. They also completed a battery of substance-related individual-difference measures. Results indicated that NAPS protocol reactivity profiles had good reliability and high specificity across cue types and individuals with different substance use histories. Avoidance reactivity independently predicted self-reports of substance-related behaviors, after controlling for approach reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self-control costs of fighting the temptation to drink.

Being exposed to the sight and smell of an alcoholic beverage and not drinking it should require self-control. On the basis of the self-control strength model (M. Muraven & R. F. Baumeister, 2000), exerting self-control should lead to poorer performance on subsequent self-control tasks. Using a cue exposure paradigm, the authors had 160 social drinkers alternately sniff water and alcohol. After each trial, the drinkers engaged in 2 self-control tasks: squeezing a handgrip and a self-stopping task. Performance on these tasks was worse after sniffing alcohol than after sniffing water. Mood and arousal did not mediate the effects; urge to drink was negatively related to outcomes. The effects were stronger for individuals high in trait temptation to drink. Resisting the temptation of drinking appears to undermine self-control capacity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cue reactivity in young marijuana smokers: A preliminary investigation.

To develop and evaluate the feasibility of a cue reactivity paradigm for young marijuana smokers, the authors set up a laboratory procedure involving neutral and marijuana-related imagery, video, and in vivo cues. Fifteen adolescents and young adults with cannabis use disorders completed the procedure, which included continuous measurement of skin conductance and heart rate. Participants also completed questionnaires regarding marijuana craving before, during, and after cue presentations. Higher levels of craving and skin conductance were observed during marijuana cue presentations. The procedure appears to elicit cue reactivity among adolescents and young adults with cannabis use disorders and should be further evaluated and refined with a larger sample. Implications for future studies are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can Children Provide Coherent, Stable, and Valid Self-Reports on the Big Five Dimensions? A Longitudinal Study From Ages 5 to 7.

Research on early childhood personality has been scarce. Self-reports of Big Five personality traits were measured longitudinally with the Berkeley Puppet Interview when children were 5, 6, and 7 years of age. For comparative purposes, Big Five self-reports were collected in a sample of college students. The children's self-reports showed levels of consistency and differentiation that approached those of the college age sample. Children's personality self-reports demonstrated significant correlations across the 1- and 2-year longitudinal intervals. Substantial and increasing convergence was found between children's self-reports of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness and conceptually relevant behavior ratings provided by mothers, fathers, and teachers. Children's self-reports of Neuroticism were unrelated to adults' reports but did predict sadness and anxious behavior observed in the laboratory. The results provide the beginnings of an account of how the Big Five dimensions begin to be salient and emerge as coherent, stable, and valid self-perceptions in childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reactivity to Alcohol Cues: Isolating the Role of Perceived Availability.

Perceived availability of a substance has been proposed to play a role in cue reactivity by both traditional classical conditioning models and S. T. Tiffany's (1990) cognitive processing model (CPM) of substance use. This study investigated the role of availability information on alcohol cue reactivity. Subjects were 134 heavy drinkers in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design, crossing cues (alcohol vs. neutral) and availability information (availability vs. unavailability). The results indicated significant main effects for cue type, with alcohol cues eliciting greater reactivity on multiple measures, and an interaction effect on the Alcohol Urge Questionnaire (M. J. Bohn, D. D. Krahn, & B. B. Staehler, 1995), such that exposure to alcohol cues in conjunction with unavailability information elicited a greater urge. This was largely a result of changes in self-reported craving and was interpreted as consistent with the CPM. Alternative methodologies and limitations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Statistics of Alcohol Use and Alcoholism in Canada.

Reviews the book, Statistics of Alcohol Use and Alcoholism in Canada. 1871-1956: First Report by R. E. Popham & W. Schmidt (1970). This volume is the first in what is proposed as an annual census of alcoholism undertaken by the Alcoholism Research Foundation of Ontario. The report includes cataloguing of alcohol statistics by (a) size and characteristics of the drinking population, (b) apparent consumption of alcoholic beverages, (c) convictions for offences involving alcohol, (d) statistics relating to the prevalence of alcoholism and (e) census population estimates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol Use Disorders and Psychological Distress: A Prospective State-Trait Analysis.

The present study examined the association between alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and psychological distress over an 11-year period using a sample of 378 young adults (46% men, 54% women: baseline age = 18.5; 51% with paternal history of alcoholism). The authors examined this relation using a state-trait model, which decomposes variance in a given construct into a general traitlike factor that spans measurement occasion and more situational, occasion-specific variability. Trait AUD and trait distress were correlated (r = .43), suggesting that the tendency to meet criteria for an AUD is associated with the tendency to experience psychological distress. Much of this association was due to 3rd variables (primarily neuroticism but also childhood stressors and behavioral undercontrol), supporting a common 3rd-variable influence model of comorbidity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mapping the Continuum of Alcohol Problems in College Students: A Rasch Model Analysis.

The authors conducted Rasch model (G. Rasch, 1960) analyses of items from the Young Adult Alcohol Problems Screening Test (YAAPST; S. C. Hurlbut & K. J. Sher, 1992) to examine the relative severity and ordering of alcohol problems in 806 college students. Items appeared to measure a single dimension of alcohol problem severity, covering a broad range of the latent continuum. Items fit the Rasch model well, with less severe symptoms reliably preceding more severe symptoms in a potential progression toward increasing levels of problem severity. However, certain items did not index problem severity consistently across demographic subgroups. A shortened, alternative version of the YAAPST is proposed, and a norm table is provided that allows for a linking of total YAAPST scores to expected symptom expression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Environments as cues to smoke: Implications for human extinction-based research and treatment.

Animal research has shown that the environments, or contexts, in which drug use occurs can play a key role in how animals respond to drug-related cues. Less is known about the role of environmental contexts in human drug-dependence research. Traditionally, cue-based studies and treatments focus on conditioned cues most proximal to drug administration (e.g., lit cigarettes, pictorial stimuli of drug paraphernalia). However, there is reason to believe that more distal cues, such as the environments in which drugs were previously used, might similarly gain associative control over human responding. This article describes a body of systematic research aimed at identifying and studying the impact of environmental contexts on smokers' cue reactivity in the laboratory. Overall, results of this program of research demonstrate that exposure to environments associated with smoking, but completely devoid of proximal smoking cues, can function as conditioned stimuli capable of evoking strong subjective responding from abstinent smokers. Furthermore, more robust reactivity can be achieved if environmental context cues are personalized using novel techniques described in this article. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Morning After: Limit Violations and the Self-Regulation of Alcohol Consumption.

The authors examined whether the reciprocal relationship between alcohol consumption and distress unfolded over time in 2 samples of social drinkers. Participants monitored their alcohol intake and their cognitive and emotional responses to that drinking on hand-held computers. On mornings after drinking, those who had violated their self-imposed limits the day before reported more guilt, even after controlling for acute negative symptoms of drinking and amount consumed. Reciprocally, guilt led to poorer self-regulation of alcohol intake: Greater distress over alcohol consumption was linked to more intake, intoxication, and more limit violations. Individual differences moderated the relationships among limit violations, distress, and drinking. Consistent with the limit violation effect, violating a limit produced distress over consumption among social drinkers, and they responded to that distress by drinking more. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of Alcohol on Risk-Seeking Behavior: A Group-Level Analysis.

Although much drinking occurs in social settings, there has been little testing of alcohol in groups. The authors examined the effects of alcohol on performance on a group decision-making task. Fifty-four unacquainted male social drinkers were randomly assigned to 3-person groups that consumed either alcohol (0.82 g/kg) or a placebo. After drinking, participants decided whether to complete a 30-min questionnaire battery or toss a coin and, pending the outcome of that toss, complete either no questionnaires or a 60-min battery. Alcohol groups were significantly more likely than placebo groups to choose the coin toss. Results highlight the potent effects of alcohol on group decision making and suggest that application of social psychological theory and methods to the study of alcohol is warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Efficacy of moderation-oriented cue exposure for problem drinkers: A randomized controlled trial.

The effectiveness of cue exposure following a priming dose was compared with cognitive-behavioral intervention in a community sample of problem drinkers. Participants were randomly associated to 1 of the 2 conditions and received a mean of 5.84 (SD=2.69) sessions. A psychologist blind to treatment condition conducted an 8-month follow-up. Compared with pretreatment levels, significant decreased in alcohol consumption were evidence posttreatment and maintained at follow-up for both groups. Reductions in severity of dependence, impaired control, and alcohol-related problems were also evidence for both groups at follow-up. No differences in outcome associated with initial severity of alcohol dependence were apparent. The results raise the issue of the appropriateness of reserving a goal of controlled drinking for those with relatively mild alcohol problems and low alcohol dependence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Subjective and Reinforcing Effects of Visual and Olfactory Stimuli in Alcohol Drinking.

Nonpharmacological cues associated with drug intake may influence subjective and reinforcing effects of those drugs. Social drinkers (N = 80) participated in 2 sessions in which they rated and then consumed ad lib their preferred beer (with participants blind to brand). Visual and olfactory stimuli were obscured during 1 session (blocked) and not obscured during the other (unblocked). Dependent measures included ratings of "liking", "want another", and "desire to drink"; subjective mood; and ad lib beer consumption (reinforcement). Most ratings and ad lib consumption were lower during the blocked versus the unblocked condition. There were no interactions of blockade condition with sex and no effect of blockade on mood. These findings show that nonpharmacological stimuli associated with alcohol consumption influence alcohol's subjective and reinforcing effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of therapy by self-report: A paradox.

A lack of awareness of dissonant feelings may not be a sign of psychological health but rather of the usual means of dealing with them, viz., repression and denial. "… all forms of psychotherapy operate by means of increasing one's capacity for realistic self-conception." Therefore, the awareness of dissonant feelings, as a function of therapy, may not be a sign of psychological illness or the failure of the therapy (although the awareness may lead to discomfort). The problem of the evaluation of psychotherapy is discussed along with the evaluation of psychologic normality. 15 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Understanding America's drinking problem: How to combat the hazards of alcohol.

Reviews the book, Understanding America's drinking problem: How to combat the hazards of alcohol by Don Cahalan (see record 1987-98459-000). This book is a systems level analysis of alcohol use and alcohol-related problems, with much of the focus on governmental and private efforts to control alcohol and those of the alcohol beverage industry to increase consumption and avoid regulation. A major theme of the book is that this industry, through lobbying, campaign contributions, and other tactics, has thwarted attempts to impose regulations on the marketing, advertising, and use of alcohol. The book provides an overview of important issues and some thought-provoking suggestions. It is, however, the person who has not been exposed to systems analysis, primary prevention, public policy development, and the role of political factors in the fight against alcohol-related problems who might gain the most from the book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Environmental Dependence of Behavioral Control Mechanisms: Effects of Alcohol and Information Processing Demands.

Studies show that alcohol increases a drinker's reliance on the environmental context for the maintenance of inhibitory and activational responding. The author of the present study examined additive effects of alcohol and cognitive load on the cue dependency of inhibitory and activational mechanisms of control. Adults received 0.0 g/kg, 0.45 g/kg, and 0.65 g/kg alcohol and performed a cued go/no-go task that presented simple and complex go and no-go stimuli. Results showed that cue dependency of response inhibition increased as a function of dose, and this effect was similar across low and high cognitive load conditions. These findings are consistent with a capacity limitation account of alcohol impairment that could involve central or output stages of information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)