Citation

Cox WM, Blount JP, Rozak AM. Am. J. Drug Alcohol Abuse 2000; 26(3): 489-495.

Affiliation

School of Psychology, University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK. m.cox@bangor.ac.uk

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10976671

Abstract

Alcohol abusers' and nonabusers' attentional distraction for neutral, alcohol-related, and concern-related (personally relevant) words was assessed with a word-word color-naming task. Abusers, unlike nonabusers, showed greater attentional distraction for alcohol-related than concern-related words. Exploratory analyses indicated that abusers who were more distracted by alcohol-related than concern-related stimuli (i.e., "alcohol distracted") responded more slowly to neutral words than "concern-distracted" participants. The results suggest that the relative degree of distraction by alcohol versus other personally relevant stimuli holds promise for understanding the cognitive and motivational processes underlying alcohol abuse.

Language: en