Effects of smoking opportunity on attentional bias in smokers.

The emotional Stroop task was used to examine the influence of opportunity to smoke on attentionall bias to smoking-related stimuli. At the outset of the study, 92 nicotine-deprived smokers were told that they (a) would, (b) would not, or (c) might be able to smoke during the experiment. Next, participants completed an emotional Stroop task, in which they were presented with smoking-related or -unrelated words in an unblocked format. Smokers demonstrated interference to the smoking words, relative to matched neutral words, F(1, 87)?=?18.0, p?F(2, 87)?=?4.35, p?     

Attentional bias for smoking and affective stimuli: A Stroop task study.

Prior research has demonstrated attentional biases to smoking-related cues among smokers, and several lines of research suggest strong ties between smoking and negative affect. The authors tested attentional biases to both smoking and affective cues in 27 smokers using an emotional Stroop paradigm, and examined the relationship between these forms of attentional bias. Findings indicated significant attentional biases to smoking-related and negative-affect words, but not positive-affect words. In addition, there was a significant correlation between the degree of attentional bias to smoking and negative-affect words. These data provide evidence of a close association between smoking-related and affective cue processing from a cognitive perspective. Potential theoretical and clinical implications for these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias predicts outcome in smoking cessation.

Most attempts to quit smoking end in failure, with many quitters relapsing in the first few days. Responses to smoking-related cues may precipitate relapse. A modified emotional Stroop task-which measures the extent to which smoking-related words disrupt performance on a reaction time (RT) task-was used to index the distracting effects of smoking-related cues. Smokers (N=158) randomized to a high-dose nicotine patch (35 mg) or placebo patch completed the Stroop task on the 1st day of a quit attempt. Smokers using an active patch exhibited less attentional bias, making fewer errors on smoking related words. Smokers who showed greater attentional bias (slowed RT on the first block of smoking words) were significantly more likely to lapse in the short-term, even when controlling for self-reported urges at the test session. Attentional bias measures may tap an important component of dependence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention bias in nicotine withdrawal and under stress.

Drug motivation models postulate that attention biasing toward smoking-related cues is a cognitive mechanism supporting continued or renewed drug use, and they predict that drug use history, deprivation, and distress should modulate the extent of this bias. The present study used the modified Stroop paradigm to extend past research regarding attention biasing toward smoking and unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral words among adult nonsmokers and daily smokers. Both nonsmokers and smokers showed differential attention toward unpleasant and pleasant cues, particularly pleasant cues, but did not show a unique bias toward smoking-related stimuli. Results suggested that, among smokers, nicotine deprivation and exogenous stress (threat of electric shock) have a nonadditive effect on attention toward pleasant cues but no effect on attention to smoking cues specifically. Similarly, instructing smokers that they would have an opportunity to smoke did not significantly increase the bias of nicotine-deprived smokers' attention toward smoking-related cues, relative to arousing unpleasant and pleasant cues. Overall, results suggest that smokers' attention may be biased toward both smoking-related and other salient cues when deprived of nicotine and anticipating an opportunity to smoke. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subliminal processing of smoking-related and affective stimuli in tobacco addiction.

Cognitive processing biases toward smoking-related and affective cues may play a role in tobacco dependence. Because processing biases may occur outside conscious awareness, the current study examined processing of smoking-related and affective stimuli presented at subliminal conditions. A pictorial subliminal repetition priming task was administered to three groups: (1) Nonsmokers (n = 56); (2) Smokers (≥10 cigarettes/day) who had been deprived from smoking for 12 h (n = 47); and (3) Nondeprived smokers (n = 66). Prime stimuli were presented briefly (17 ms) and were followed by a mask (to render them unavailable to conscious awareness) and then a target. Participants were required to make a speeded classification to the target. A posttask awareness check was administered to ensure that participants could not consciously perceive the briefly presented primes (i.e., smoking paraphernalia, neutral office supplies, and happy, angry, and neutral facial expressions). The groups differed in the degree to which they exhibited a processing bias for smoking-related stimuli, F(2, 166) = 4.99, p = .008. Deprived smokers exhibited a bias toward processing smoking (vs. neutral office supply) stimuli, F(1, 46) = 5.67, p = .02, whereas nondeprived smokers and nonsmokers did not (ps > .22). The three groups did not differ in the degree to which they exhibited a subliminal processing bias for affective stimuli. Tobacco deprivation appears to increase smokers' subliminal processing of smoking-related (vs. neutral) stimuli but does not influence subliminal processing of affective stimuli. Future research should investigate whether subliminal biases toward smoking-related stimuli influence relapse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias in drug dependence: Vigilance for cigarette-related cues in smokers.

Two experiments investigated attentional biases for smoking-related cues in smokers and nonsmokers, using the visual probe task. In Experiment 1, when pictures were displayed for 500 ms, smokers who had made repeated quit attempts showed an attentional bias for smoking-related scenes. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and revealed that when pictures were presented for 2,000 ms, the smoker group as a whole showed vigilance for smoking-related cues, but nonsmokers did not. The findings from the 500-ms exposure condition suggest that initial orienting of attention to smoking cues was associated with repeated unsuccessful attempts at abstinence in smokers. Results are discussed with reference to incentive-sensitization theories of addiction and to component processes of selective attention, such as initial orienting versus maintenance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suppression of Attentional Bias in PTSD.

Sixty combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder performed an emotional Stroop task under 1 of 4 contextual conditions designed to test theoretical explanations for an attentional bias suppression effect. Results revealed that when the emotional Stroop task was performed under conditions involving a future threat of either watching a combat video or giving a speech, attentional bias was inhibited. There was limited support for the prediction that the suppression effect was strongest when stressor content matched word content on the Stroop. In contrast to participants in the threat conditions, veterans who believed that they would receive additional compensation for speeded color naming or who believed that they would have no other experimental demands were slower when color naming combat-threat words. Potential theoretical explanations of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nicotine primes attention to competing affective stimuli in the context of salient alternatives.

Despite the importance of the subject, the effects of nicotine on the interplay between affect and attentional bias are not clear. This interplay was assessed with a novel design of the Primed Attentional Competition Task (PACT). It included a 200-ms duration emotional priming picture (negative, positive, or neutral) followed by a dual-target picture of two emotional faces side-by-side. A second task included an emotional priming picture followed by a single emotional target picture in a classic affective priming (CAP) task, assessing reaction time to identify the valence. Smokers completed the tasks in a double-blind repeated measures design wearing a nicotine patch on one day and a placebo patch on the other day. Consistent with hypotheses, nicotine enhanced the effectiveness of positive primes to bias first gaze-fixations (FGFs) toward neutral pictures relative to negative pictures and attenuated the effectiveness of negative primes on FGFs toward negative pictures, but did not bias performance in the CAP task where competing target stimuli were not present. These effects of nicotine on affective priming and attentional bias toward competing reinforcers may contribute to smoking motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional dilution of the Stroop effect: A new tool for assessing attention under emotion.

In order to gauge in a precise fashion the capture of attention by emotional stimuli, we developed a new tool that imports the classic Stroop effect into the realm of emotion. Strooping the typical emotion tasks enabled the derivation of a pure intraitem measure of attention under emotion. The results of two experiments showed that the classic Stroop effects were smaller with emotion than with neutral words, demonstrating the power of emotion to bias attention. This emotional dilution of the Stroop effect can serve as a general-purpose tool for assessing attention under emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioning-induced attentional bias for face stimuli measured with the emotional Stroop task.

People with anxiety disorder display attentional bias toward threat-related objects. Using classical fear conditioning, the authors investigated the possible source of such bias in normal participants. Following differential fear conditioning in which an angry face of either male or female (conditioned stimulus: CS+) was paired with mild electric fingershock (unconditioned stimulus: US) but the angry face of the other gender and all other facial expressions unpaired (CS-), an emotional Stroop task was administered. In the Stroop task, participants were required to identify the color of the facial stimuli (red, green, blue, or yellow). Response latency was significantly longer for the CS+ angry face than the other unpaired facial stimuli (CS-). Furthermore, this acquired attentional bias was positively correlated with the level of trait-anxiety measured before the conditioning and the degree of self-reported aversiveness of the US. Our results demonstrated that attentional bias could be induced in normal individuals through a simple associative learning procedure, and the acquisition is modulated by the level of trait anxiety and the level of perceived fear of the aversive US. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional stimuli and context moderate effects of nicotine on specific but not global affects.

The authors tested the hypothesis that the effects of nicotine on affect are moderated by the presence or absence of emotionally positive and negative stimuli and by attentional choice to avoid attending to emotionally negative stimuli. Thirty-two habitual smokers were assigned to tasks allowing attentional freedom to look back and forth at 2 simultaneously presented pictures, whereas another 32 habitual smokers viewed single pictures without attentional choice. Picture contents in both tasks were 1 of 4 combinations: emotionally negative + neutral, negative + positive, positive + neutral, or neutral + neutral. Participants wore a nicotine patch on 1 day and placebo patch on another day. Nicotine reduced anxiety most when negative pictures were presented in combination with neutral pictures, but it had no effect on anxiety when negative pictures were presented in combination with positive pictures and when negative pictures were not presented. In contrast, nicotine only reduced depressive affect when the participant had attentional choice between positive and negative pictures. Nicotine also enhanced positive affect and reduced negative affect as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, but these effects were not moderated by task manipulations. Overall, the findings support the view that nicotine's ability to reduce specific negative affects is moderated by emotional context and attentional freedom. Nicotine tended to enhance eye-gaze orientation to emotional pictures versus neutral pictures in women, but it had no significant effect on eye-gaze in men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Independent Manipulation of Emotion in an Emotional Stroop Task Using Classical Conditioning.

The effects of emotional connotation on emotional Stroop interference in anxiety were examined. First, a classical conditioning paradigm was used in which neutral words and nonwords were paired with either negative or neutral pictures. These conditioned stimuli were then presented in an emotional Stroop paradigm. Finally, participants rated each word and nonword for emotional connotation. The high-anxious group demonstrated significant interference for the nonwords that had been negatively conditioned, and these effects did not dissipate over time. The affective rating data supported the view that nonwords, but not the words had been successfully conditioned in the high-anxious group. This experiment provides evidence for the importance of emotional connotation rather than confounded semantic factors in the emotional Stroop effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcoholic subjects' attentional bias in the processing of alcohol-related words.

Studied attentional bias for alcohol-related (AR) words in 13 alcoholic men and 17 matched control Ss with a modified version of the Stroop Color and Word Test that included color-interfering, AR, and neutral words. Results indicate that (1) alcoholic Ss responded more slowly to all word categories than control Ss, (2) both alcoholic and control Ss responded more slowly to color-interfering words than to neutral words, and (3) only alcoholic Ss responded more slowly to AR words than to neutral words. Findings indicate that when the alcoholic Ss were confronted with AR stimuli, cognitive processes presumably began that made it impossible for them to ignore the meaning of the words and their resources were allocated to the content of the alcohol stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preattentive bias for emotional information in panic disorder with agoraphobia.

A combined emotional Stroop and implicit memory (tachistoscopic identification) task with 3 types of words (panic-related, interpersonal threat, and neutral words) and 2 exposure conditions (subliminal, supraliminal) was administered to 35 patients with panic disorder and 35 age- and sex-matched controls. The patients showed Stroop interference for panic-related words both sub- and supraliminally and a similar but not equally robust effect on interpersonal threat words. On the tachistoscopic identification task, the patients identified more panic-related words than the controls did but showed no implicit memory bias effect. The patients' subliminal Stroop interference for panic-related words was found to correlate with trait anxiety and depression, although not with anxiety sensitivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subliminal processing of emotional information in anxiety and depression.

Investigated selective processing of emotional information in anxiety and depression using a modified Stroop color naming task. 19 anxious, 18 depressed, and 18 normal control Ss were required to name the background colors of anxiety-related, depression-related, positive, categorized, and uncategorized neutral words. Half of the words were presented supraliminally, half subliminally. Anxious Ss, compared with depressed and normal Ss, showed relatively slower color naming for both supraliminal and subliminal negative words. The results suggest a preattentive processing bias for negative information in anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Avoiding the approach trap: A response bias theory of the emotional Stroop effect.

In the laboratory, people classify the color of emotion-laden words slower than they do that of neutral words, the emotional Stroop effect. Outside the laboratory, people react to features of emotion-laden stimuli or threatening stimuli faster than they do to those of neutral stimuli. A possible resolution to the conundrum implicates the counternatural response demands imposed in the laboratory that do not, as a rule, provide for avoidance in the face of threat. In 2 experiments we show that when such an option is provided in the laboratory, the response latencies follow those observed in real life. These results challenge the dominant attention theory offered for the emotional Stroop effect because this theory is indifferent to the vital approach–avoidance distinction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of emotional valence on age differences in early processing and memory.

This study examined older and younger adults' attentional biases and subsequent incidental recognition memory for distracting positive, negative, and neutral words. Younger adults were more distracted by negative stimuli than by positive or neutral stimuli, and they correctly recognized more negative than positive words. Older adults, however, attended equally to all stimuli yet showed reliable recognition only for positive words. Thus, although an attentional bias toward negative words carried over into recognition performance for younger adults, older adults' bias appeared to be limited to remembering positive information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional Stroop Performance for Masked Angry Faces: It's BAS, Not BIS.

Theoretical models concerning selective attention to emotional stimuli predict heightened vigilance to angry faces in people with heightened trait anxiety or greater activity of the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). Recent evidence from electroencephalographic lateralization and affect studies and from studies assessing attentional biases to angry faces suggest, however, that heightened anger and activity of the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) should predict vigilant responding to angry faces. Social anxiety should predict avoidance of angry faces. Results from a masked emotional Stroop task verified these hypotheses, but an unmasked emotional Stroop provided no reliable relations. This dissociation confirms earlier claims that masked emotional Stroop performance is impervious to conscious control over the cognitive-emotional processes, as measured by the Stroop task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)