Delay discounting and the alcohol Stroop in heavy drinking adolescents.

Full Abstract

AIMS:
To investigate whether adolescent heavy drinkers exhibit biased cognitive processing of alcohol-related cues and impulsive decision making.

DESIGN:
A between-subjects design was employed.

SETTING:
Classrooms in a single sixth-form college in Merseyside, UK.

PARTICIPANTS:
Ninety adolescent students (mean age 16.83 years), of whom 38% were identified as heavy drinkers and 36% were identified as light drinkers, based on a tertile split of their weekly alcohol consumption.

MEASUREMENTS:
Participants provided information about alcohol consumption before completing measures of alcohol craving, delay discounting and an "alcohol Stroop" in which they were required to name the colour in which alcohol-related and matched control words were printed.

FINDINGS:
Compared to light drinkers, heavy drinkers showed more pronounced discounting of delayed hypothetical monetary and alcohol rewards, which is indicative of a more short-term focus in decision making in heavy drinkers. Heavy drinkers were also slower to colour-name alcohol-related words, which indicates an attentional bias for alcohol-related cues. In all participants, measures of delay discounting and attentional bias were correlated moderately with each other, and also with the level of alcohol consumption and with alcohol craving.

CONCLUSIONS:
In adolescents, heavy alcohol use is associated with biased attentional processing of alcohol-related cues and a shorter-term focus in decision making.

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Author information

Author/s: Field, Matt (M); Christiansen, Paul (P); Cole, Jon (J); Goudie, Andrew (A);

Affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Bedford Street South, Liverpool, UK. mfield(-atsign-)liverpool.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Addiction (Abingdon, England) (Addiction), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Apr; vol 102 (issue 4) : pp 579-86

Dates: Created 2007/03/16; Completed 2007/05/21;

PMID: 17309540, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Alcohol Drinking - psychology
Alcoholic Intoxication - psychology
Area Under Curve
Attention - drug effects
Cognition - drug effects
Color Perception - drug effects; physiology
Cues

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