Abstract
AimsTo investigate the mediating role of attentional bias for alcohol cues on alcohol-seeking following devaluation of alcohol.DesignBetween subject.SettingEye-tracking laboratory at the University of Liverpool.ParticipantsStudent social drinkers (n = 64).MeasurementsAn operant choice task in which participants chose between simultaneously presented alcohol and non-alcohol drink rewards, while attentional bias for alcohol and non-alcohol drink cues was inferred from eye movements. Participants then consumed 30 mL of an alcoholic beverage, which was either presented alone (no devaluation: n = 32) or had been adulterated to taste unpleasant (devaluation: n = 32). Choice and attentional bias for the alcohol and non-alcohol drink pictures were then measured again.FindingsAlcohol devaluation reduced behavioural choice for alcohol (F = 32.64, P < 0.001) and attentional bias for the alcohol pictures indexed by dwell time (F = 22.68, P < 0.001), initial fixation (F = 7.08, P = 0.01) and final fixation (F = 22.44, P < 0.001). Mediation analysis revealed that attentional bias partially mediated the effect of devaluation on alcohol choice; however, the proportion of the variance accounted for by attentional bias is low to moderate (∼30%).ConclusionsAmong student social drinkers, attentional bias is only a partial mediator of alcohol choice following devaluation of alcohol. Value-based decision-making may be a more important determinant of drinking behaviour among student social drinkers than attentional bias.
Highlights
Since the publication of Robinson and Berridge’s [1] incentive-sensitization theory it has been argued that attentional bias to drug cues plays a causal role in drug-seeking [2,3,4]
The key aim was to determine whether a change in alcohol-related attentional bias would mediate the change in alcohol choice, thereby indicating whether attentional bias for drug cues plays a causal role in drug-seeking
This study examined the change in alcohol choice and attentional bias for alcohol images following alcohol devaluation/no devaluation
Summary
Since the publication of Robinson and Berridge’s [1] incentive-sensitization theory it has been argued that attentional bias to drug cues (which develops owing to greater salience of the substance’s rewarding properties and the predictive nature of the cue) plays a causal role in drug-seeking [2,3,4]. Removing the attentional bias for drug-paired stimuli does not always reduce the stimuli’s ability to motivate drug-seeking [11,12] This dissociation between attention and behaviour has been confirmed in animal work; the orienting response to reward-paired stimuli can be abolished by brain lesions, but the cues still motivate reward-seeking [13,14]. These data suggest no causal role for attentional bias in drug-seeking. The key aim was to determine whether a change in alcohol-related attentional bias (produced by devaluation) would mediate the change in alcohol choice, thereby indicating whether attentional bias for drug cues plays a causal role in drug-seeking. That attention to a reward increases choice by ~10% [15,16], we hypothesised that the mediating effect of an alcohol-related attentional bias on alcohol choice behaviour would be low-to-moderate
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