Introduction

Substance use causes attentional biases for substance-related stimuli. Both bottom-up (preferential processing) and top-down (inhibitory control) processes are involved in attentional biases. We explored these aspects of attentional bias by using dependent and non-dependent cigarette smokers in order to see whether these two groups would differ in terms of general inhibitory control, bottom-up attentional bias, and top-down attentional biases. This enables us to see whether consumption behaviour would affect these cognitive responses to smoking-related stimuli.

Methods

Smokers were categorised as either dependent (N = 26) or non-dependent (N = 34) smokers. A further group of non-smokers (N = 32) were recruited to act as controls. Participants then completed a behavioural inhibition task with general stimuli, a smoking-related eye tracking version of the dot-probe task, and an eye-tracking inhibition task with smoking-related stimuli.

Results

Results indicated that dependent smokers had decreased inhibition and increased attentional bias for smoking-related stimuli (and not control stimuli). By contrast, a decreased inhibition for smoking-related stimuli (in comparison to control stimuli) was not observed for non-dependent smokers.

Conclusions

Preferential processing of substance-related stimuli may indicate usage of a substance, whereas poor inhibitory control for substance-related stimuli may only emerge if dependence develops. The results suggest that how people engage with substance abuse is important for top-down attentional biases.

中文翻译：

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吸烟相关刺激的自上而下和自下而上的注意偏见：比较依赖和不依赖吸烟者

介绍

物质的使用会引起与物质有关的刺激的注意偏见。自下而上（优先处理）和自上而下（抑制控制）过程都涉及注意偏见。我们通过使用依赖型和非依赖型吸烟者探讨了注意偏见的这些方面，以了解这两类人在一般抑制控制，自下而上的注意偏见和自上而下的注意偏见方面是否会有所不同。这使我们能够了解消费行为是否会影响这些对吸烟相关刺激的认知反应。

方法

吸烟者分为依赖吸烟者（N = 26）或不依赖吸烟者（N = 34）。招募了另一组非吸烟者（N = 32）作为对照。然后，参与者完成了具有一般刺激的行为抑制任务，点探针任务的吸烟相关眼动追踪版本以及具有吸烟相关刺激的眼动跟踪抑制任务。

结果

结果表明，依赖吸烟者对吸烟相关刺激（而非对照刺激）的抑制作用降低，注意力偏向增加。相反，对于非依赖性吸烟者，未观察到对吸烟相关刺激的抑制作用降低（与对照刺激相比）。

结论

优先处理与物质有关的刺激物可能表明某种物质的使用，而对与物质有关的刺激物的抑制性控制不佳可能仅在产生依赖性的情况下出现。结果表明，人们如何进行药物滥用对于自上而下的注意偏见很重要。