Abstract
The development of new technologies, and more specifically the opportunity to immerse participants in virtual controlled environments, provides a new ecological framework for researchers to study complex behaviors. This experiment aimed to compare post-immersion craving in occasional and heavy alcohol drinkers. Twenty-two occasional drinkers and eighteen heavy drinkers were recruited and immersed in a virtual bar, including alcoholic beverages. After the exposure, heavy drinkers reported a significantly higher craving than occasional drinkers. Post-immersion alcohol craving was significantly related to the levels of perceived ecological validity of the virtual environment. Finally, a moderation analysis suggested that the levels of craving more strongly increased with perceived ecological validity in heavy drinkers than in occasional drinkers. Therefore, the perceived ecological validity was an important experimental parameter to study craving in a virtual environment. These results further suggested that virtual reality might be a useful tool for both the scientific study of alcohol addiction and the treatment of alcohol dependence and relapse.
Highlights
Alcohol craving is defined as the irrepressible desire to consume the substance and is considered as an important element in the development of alcoholism (Robinson and Berridge, 1993; Field and Cox, 2008) and alcohol relapse (Evren et al, 2010; Sinha et al, 2011)
The present study shows that heavy alcohol drinkers have higher craving scores than occasional drinkers after immersion in a virtual environment with alcohol-related cues, using an experimental design that reduces potential response and experimental biases associated with assessing craving before the immersion in virtual reality
The present study suggests that alcohol craving is sensitive to the realism of the virtual environment in interaction with the past alcohol consumption experience of participants
Summary
Alcohol craving is defined as the irrepressible desire to consume the substance and is considered as an important element in the development of alcoholism (Robinson and Berridge, 1993; Field and Cox, 2008) and alcohol relapse (Evren et al, 2010; Sinha et al, 2011). Many studies have investigated how various cues can increase alcohol craving and to trigger alcohol relapse (Pericot-Valverde et al, 2015). Previously published studies suggest that immersion in virtual alcohol-related environments enhances craving in participants with alcohol use disorders (Bordnick et al, 2008), and in abstinent alcohol-dependent patients (Lee et al, 2008). In non-clinical populations, Cho et al (2008) showed that a virtual alcohol-related environment can induce alcohol craving in non-dependent drinkers. Only one study has directly compared craving levels between two non-clinical samples of alcohol drinkers. Binge drinkers reported higher levels of craving than non-binge drinkers after an immersion in virtual environments (kitchen and party) with alcohol-related cues (Ryan et al, 2010)
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