Pre-attentional Bias Modification in Smokers: Generalization to a New Stimulus and Task Paradigm

Pre-attentional bias happens when several stimuli compete to grasp attention in fraction of a second, and without a conscious experience one stimulus attracts the attention. The existing literature has emphasized on the importance of pre-attentional bias as a potential cue-related factor in the process of drug addiction when abuse and relapse take place. This investigation was an attempt to propose attentional bias modification as a tool to decrease pre-attentional bias and to generalize it to a new stimulus and task (stroop test) paradigm among cigarette smokers. Two groups of cigarette smokers (control and attentional bias modification) were enrolled to have their attentional bias (600 ms) as well as pre-attentional bias (200 ms) measured in response to the stimuli such as words and pictures using dot-probe and Stroop tasks. Between pre-test and post-test, the control group received a neutral training, while the attentional bias modification group subjected an attentional bias modification training. Findings indicated a significant difference between the two groups on post-test in terms of both attentional and pre-attentional bias when Stroop task was used upon attentional bias to novel cues in post-test and follow up. This study demonstrated the efficient generalization of attentional bias modification training in decreasing pre-attentional bias in a new stimulus and task paradigm. It seems the attentional bias modification training can potentially be generalized into the real life context.