Citation

Bauer D, Cox WM. Addiction 1998; 93(10): 1539-1542.

Affiliation

Finch University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School, Illinois, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9926558

Abstract

AIM: To compare alcohol abusers' and non-abusers' distraction for alcohol-related and emotional words, controlling for emotional valence of those words. DESIGN AND METHOD: The experiment compared 20 alcohol abusers and 20 non-abusers in terms of performance on a computerized Stroop colour-naming test using alcohol-related and non-alcohol-related words. FINDINGS: Abusers rated the alcohol stimuli greater in emotional valence than the emotional stimuli. Therefore, differences in emotional-valence ratings between the two groups were statistically controlled. Against expectation, both alcohol abusers and non-abusers were more distracted by alcohol stimuli than by positive or negative emotional stimuli. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that alcohol words are distracting for drinkers in general, and this may indicate a high level of salience for these kinds of stimuli.

Language: en