Background and objectives

Neurocognitive processes are key drivers of addictive and compulsive disorders. The current study examined whether reward-related attentional capture and cognitive inflexibility are associated with impulsive and/or compulsive personality traits, and whether these cognitive characteristics interact to predict greater compulsivity-related problems across obsessive-compulsive and drinking behaviors.

Methods

One-hundred and seventy-three participants (mean age = 34.5 years, S.D = 8.4, 42% female) completed an online visual search task to measure reward-related attentional capture and its persistence following reversal of stimulus-reward contingencies. Participants also completed questionnaires to assess trait impulsivity, compulsivity, alcohol use, and obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

Results

Greater reward-related attentional capture was associated with trait compulsivity, over and above all impulsivity dimensions, while greater cognitive inflexibility was associated with higher negative urgency (distress-elicited impulsivity). Reward-related attentional capture and cognitive inflexibility interacted to predict greater compulsivity-related problems among participants who reported obsessive-compulsive behaviors in the past month (n = 57) as well as current drinkers (n = 88). Follow-up analyses showed that, for OCD behaviors, this interaction was driven by an association between higher reward-related attentional capture and more problematic behaviors among cognitively inflexible participants only. For drinking, the same pattern was seen, albeit at trend level. Limitations: This study includes a non-clinical, online sample and is cross-sectional, thus its findings need to be interpreted with these limitations in mind.

Conclusions

Reward-related attentional capture and cognitive flexibility are related to trait compulsivity and impulsivity (negative urgency) respectively, and interact to determine more problematic behaviors.

中文翻译：

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与奖励相关的注意力捕获和认知僵化相互作用，以确定与强迫症相关的问题的严重程度。

背景和目标

神经认知过程是成瘾和强迫症的关键驱动因素。目前的研究检查了与奖励相关的注意力捕获和认知僵化是否与冲动和/或强迫性人格特征相关，以及这些认知特征是否相互作用以预测强迫症和饮酒行为中更大的强迫症相关问题。

方法

一百七十三名参与者（平均年龄 = 34.5 岁，SD = 8.4，42% 女性）完成了一项在线视觉搜索任务，以测量与奖励相关的注意力捕获及其在刺激奖励意外事件逆转后的持久性。参与者还完成了问卷，以评估特质冲动、强迫性、饮酒和强迫行为。

结果

更大的与奖励相关的注意力捕获与特质强迫性有关，尤其是所有的冲动性维度，而更大的认知僵化与更高的负面紧迫感（苦恼引发的冲动性）相关。与奖励相关的注意力捕获和认知僵化相互作用，以预测在过去一个月内报告有强迫行为的参与者 ( n  = 57) 以及当前饮酒者 ( n  = 88) 中更大的强迫相关问题。后续分析表明，对于强迫症行为，这种相互作用是由更高的奖励相关注意力捕获与仅在认知不灵活的参与者中更成问题的行为之间的关联驱动的。对于饮酒，也看到了相同的模式，尽管处于趋势水平。局限性：本研究包括一个非临床的在线样本并且是横断面的，因此需要考虑到这些局限性来解释其结果。

结论

奖励相关的注意力捕获和认知灵活性分别与特质强迫性和冲动性（负紧迫感）相关，并相互作用以确定更多问题行为。