Barry T. Jones

Sleep-related attentional bias in good, moderate, and poor (primary insomnia) sleepers.

Evidence was sought of an attentional bias toward a highly representative object of the bedroom environment in good, moderate, and poor (primary insomnia) sleepers. Using a flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness, the authors briefly presented a single scene comprising a group of bedroom environment and neutral objects to participants and then briefly replaced this scene with an identical scene containing a change made to either a bedroom environment or a neutral object. In a 3 x 2 entirely between-participants design, change-detection latencies revealed a sleep-related attentional bias in poor sleepers but not in good sleepers. A possible bias in moderate sleepers was also revealed. It is suggested that attentional bias has a role in the perpetuation and possibly precipitation of primary insomnia.

Alcohol-related attentional bias in problem drinkers with the flicker change blindness paradigm

The authors used a flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness as a more direct method of measuring attentional bias in problem drinkers in treatment than the previously used, modified Stroop, Posner, and dual-task paradigms. First, in an artificially constructed visual scene comprising digitized photographs of real alcohol-related and neutral objects, problem drinkers detected a change made to an alcohol-related object more quickly than to a neutral object. Age- and gender-matched social drinkers showed no such difference. Second, problem drinkers given the alcohol-related change to detect showed a negative correlation between the speed with which the change was detected and the problem severity as measured by the number of times previously treated. Coupled with other data from heavy and light social drinkers, the data support a graded continuity of attentional bias underpinning the length of the consumption continuum.

A pictorial Stroop paradigm reveals an alcohol attentional bias in heavier compared to lighter social drinkers

The findings obtained with the textual Stroop paradigm, testing for an attentional bias towards alcohol stimuli in heavier compared to lighter social drinkers, are limited in number and inconsistent in outcome. Using a pictorial rather than textual Stroop paradigm for the first time in alcohol research, a significant alcohol attentional bias is reported in heavier social drinkers compared to lighter social drinking controls. According to Cohen’s scheme, the signifant effect size is classified as ‘large’. The presence of an alcohol attentional bias helps to explain the perpetuation of abusive/dependent consumption and the frequency of post-treatment relapse. In a similar vein, these results add to the evidence that a differential alcohol attentional bias might also be present between two levels of social drinking and, in heavier social drinkers, has the potential to impact on the contents of awareness and the flow of thought towards alcohol. In this respect, it extends the small group of other perceptual-cognitive effects measured in social drinkers (alcohol cue reactions, alcohol associations and alcohol expectancies) that can influence the initiation of consumption in some social drinkers.

Alcohol-Related Words of Positive Affect are More Accessible in Social Drinkers' Memory Than are Other Words When Sip-Primed by Alcohol

Alcohol-related consequences of consumption with positive affect are claimed to be more accessible in memory than are negative, and to a limited extent this has been demonstrated with recall paradigms. This hypothesis is tested with a more robust recognition paradigm, the automated Stroop. A 3-factor mixed design was used: between subjects factor was Prime (soft or alcoholic drink); two within subjects factors were related to the Stroop word stimuli, Affect (positive or negative) and Alcohol-relatedness (related or unrelated). Sixty paid, volunteer, social drinkers took part. Binary colour choice RTs were measured and Stroop Interference RTs were derived in the standard way. Only correct RTs were analysed. Using a 2×2×2 ANOVA, a significant 3-way interaction was found (p=0.029). Words depicting positive consequences of alcohol consumption had significantly higher interference scores than did words depicting negative in the group primed with alcohol drink sips but not in the group primed with soft drink sips.

The effects of alcohol cues and an alcohol priming dose on a multi-factorial measure of subjective cue reactivity in social drinkers.

Abstract  Rationale: Exploring subjective alcohol cue reactivity in non-clinical samples should assist understanding in clinical samples where additional problems muddy the water. However, exploration is stalled through using insensitive, single-item representations. Objective: The effect of alcohol cues and a priming dose of alcohol on a new multi-factorial representation of cue reactivity is sought (DAQ, Desire for Alcohol Questionnaire). Methods: Prime and Cue exposure are variables in a standard 2×2 between subjects design set within a stooge taste-evaluation experiment. The DAQ was administered after a Prime and Cue exposure phase. Results: Main effects for Cue exposure but not Prime were found for the DAQ total and the subscales Mild desires (positively reinforcing items) and Strong desires/intentions but not Negative reinforcement (negatively reinforcing items) and Controllability; however, there was no interaction. Conclusion: The DAQ is a sensitive measure of subjective cue reactivity in social drinkers and its potential in the evaluation of pharmacological interventions is proposed.

Negative Expectancy in Motivation

Motivation has many roles in alcohol consumption and although motivation for recovery from alcohol problems is recognised as one of them, paradoxically the vast majority of research within the area of problem drinking continues to be directed towards motivation to drink. Whilst the contribution made by this approach is acknowledged, a more appropriate direction might he to enquire not “What makes people drink?” but “What makes people stop drinking?”The key to this approach is not the much-researched concept of positive expectancy but rather the hitherto neglected concept of negative expectancy. Evidence from spontaneous remission studies supporting the importance of negative expectancy in recovery is reviewed and the factors (primacy and contrast) are identified which appear to attenuate the translation of negative experiences into negative expectancies and, consequently, motivation for recovery. Finally, the implications for treatment and the need to develop methods of motivational assessment (negative e...

Levels of stimulus processing by the squirrel monkey: relative and absolute judgements compared.

Nine squirrel monkeys were required to select from various sets of stimuli—differing in size or brightness—either in terms of relational criteria or on an absolute stimulus basis. The level of information processing required by each task was assessed by means of stimulus transformation techniques, variations in set size, and by the elimination of the visible context. It was found that some relational judgements make fewer processing demands on the subject than do absolute stimulus judgements; the ‘middle’ relation, however, appears much more difficult to use than selection of a stimulus on an absolute basis and may be beyond the competence of the squirrel monkey. The results are seen as support for the thesis as advanced by McGonigle and Jones that the criteria of judgement, when varied, change the depth of stimulus processing by monkey as well as man.

Judgemental Criteria and the Perception of Structure

We repudiate Dodwells claim that his relational model is predictively more accurate than our Garner-based treatment of AT. We claim instead, that his case is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the essentials of Garners complex thesis, together with a misreading of our own report. Rather than accept his notion of a single continuum of salience as providing for the genesis of structure, we argue instead that his ‘single continuum’ compounds and confounds at least two continua which may be understood only where the criteria of judgement are made explicit.

A working memory bias for alcohol-related stimuli depends on drinking score

We tested 44 participants with respect to their working memory (WM) performance on alcohol-related versus neutral visual stimuli. Previously an alcohol attentional bias (AAB) had been reported using these stimuli, where the attention of frequent drinkers was automatically drawn toward alcohol-related items (e.g., beer bottle). The present study set out to provide evidence for an alcohol memory bias (AMB) that would persist over longer time-scales than the AAB. The WM task we used required memorizing 4 stimuli in their correct locations and a visual interference task was administered during a 4-sec delay interval. A subsequent probe required participants to indicate whether a stimulus was shown in the correct or incorrect location. For each participant we calculated a drinking score based on 3 items derived from the Alcohol Use Questionnaire, and we observed that higher scorers better remembered alcohol-related images compared with lower scorers, particularly when these were presented in their correct locations upon recall. This provides first evidence for an AMB. It is important to highlight that this effect persisted over a 4-sec delay period including a visual interference task that erased iconic memories and diverted attention away from the encoded items, thus the AMB cannot be reduced to the previously reported AAB. Our finding calls for further investigation of alcohol-related cognitive biases in WM, and we propose a preliminary model that may guide future research.

The Role of Context in the Perception of Orientation by the Rat

Two experiments are reported which demonstrate the role of contextual factors in the rats perception of orientation. Designed to eschew criticisms of an earlier study by McGonigle and Jones, the first experiment shows that the rats perception of linear Gestalten is conditional upon the set of alternative patterns within which the (linear) pattern is embedded. The second experiment shows that the ecological framework of an orientational cue (rather than its position relative to retinocortical coordinates) determines the rats perception of vertical and horizontal stimuli.