THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL CUE EXPOSURE ON NON-DEPENDENT DRINKERS' ATTENTIONAL BIAS FOR ALCOHOL-RELATED STIMULI

Abstract

AIMS: The effects of university students' habitual drinking practices and experimental alcohol cue exposure on their attentional bias for alcohol-related stimuli were assessed. METHODS: Participants were exposed in vivo to either an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage immediately prior to completing a cognitively demanding emotional Stroop task that uses alcohol-related and control words as potential distractors. RESULTS: Regression analyses indicated that, for participants who were low consumers of alcohol, neither level of habitual drinking, type of cue exposure, nor their interaction predicted attentional bias for the alcohol-related stimuli. For high consumers of alcohol who were exposed to the alcoholic beverage (but not those exposed to the non-alcoholic beverage), the amount of alcohol that participants habitually drank significantly predicted the degree of attentional bias. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that, among non-dependent drinkers (unlike alcohol-dependent participants), alcohol-related attentional bias is not a generalized phenomenon, but occurs only under a specific set of circumstances.