Attentional Biases and Their Association with Substance-Use-Related Problems and Addictive Behaviors: The Utility of a Gamified Value-Modulated Attentional Capture Task

René Freichel; Erynn Christensen; Lana Mrkonja; Peter J de Jong; Janna Cousijn; Ingmar Franken; Murat Yücel; Rico Lee; Ilya M Veer; Lucy Albertella; Reinout W Wiers

doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2024.100534

Attentional Biases and Their Association with Substance-Use-Related Problems and Addictive Behaviors: The Utility of a Gamified Value-Modulated Attentional Capture Task

Addict Behav Rep. 2024 Feb 13:19:100534. doi: 10.1016/j.abrep.2024.100534. eCollection 2024 Jun.

Authors

René Freichel¹, Erynn Christensen², Lana Mrkonja¹, Peter J de Jong³, Janna Cousijn⁴, Ingmar Franken⁴, Murat Yücel^{2

5}, Rico Lee^{6

2}, Ilya M Veer¹, Lucy Albertella², Reinout W Wiers^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ Addiction Development and Psychopathology (ADAPT)-lab, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
² BrainPark, Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health and School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Australia BrainPark, Clayton, Australia.
³ Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
⁴ Center for Substance Use and Addiction Research (CESAR), Department of Psychology, Education & Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
⁵ QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
⁶ Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
⁷ Center for Urban Mental Health, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Abstract

Background: Attentional biases towards reward stimuli have been implicated in substance use-related problems. The value-modulated attentional capture (VMAC) task assesses such reward-related biases. The VMAC task widely used in lab studies tends to be monotonous and susceptible to low effort. We therefore tested a gamified online version of the VMAC that aimed to increase participant engagement. Our goal was to examine how VMAC is associated with substance use-related problems and addictive behaviors, and whether this association is moderated by cognitive control.

Methods: We recruited 285 participants from an online community, including heavy alcohol users. All participants completed a novel gamified version of the VMAC task, measures of substance use and addictive behaviors (addictive-like eating behavior, problematic smartphone use), the WebExec measure of problems with executive functions, and the Stroop Adaptive Deadline Task (SDL) as a measure of cognitive control.

Results: The gamified VMAC task successfully identified value-modulated attentional capture effects towards high-reward stimuli. We found no significant associations between VMAC scores, problematic alcohol or cannabis use, addictive behaviors, or any moderation by a behavioral measure of cognitive control. Exploratory analyses revealed that self-reported cognitive problems were associated with more alcohol-, and cannabis-related problems, and addictive behaviors. Greater attentional capture (VMAC) was associated with more cannabis use-related problems among individuals with higher levels of self-reported cognitive problems.

Conclusions: Our study is one of the first to demonstrate the utility of the gamified version of the VMAC task in capturing attentional reward biases. Self-reported problems with cognitive functions represent a key dimension associated with substance use-related problems and addictive behaviors.

Keywords: Addictive behaviors; Attentional bias; Cognitive control; Substance use.