title: The role of attentional bias in mediating human drug-seeking behaviour.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The attentional bias for drug cues is believed to be a causal cognitive process mediating human drug seeking and relapse.
  To test this claim, we trained smokers on a tobacco conditioning procedure in which the conditioned stimulus (or S+) acquired parallel control of an attentional bias (measured with an eye tracker), tobacco expectancy and instrumental tobacco-seeking behaviour. Although this correlation between measures may be regarded as consistent with the claim that the attentional bias for the S+ mediated tobacco seeking, when a secondary task was added in the test phase, the attentional bias for the S+ was abolished, yet the control of tobacco expectancy and tobacco seeking remained intact.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This dissociation suggests that the attentional bias for drug cues is not necessary for the control that drug cues exert over drug-seeking behaviour. The question raised by these data is what function does the attentional bias serve if it does not mediate drug seeking?
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, UK. Lee.Hogarth@nottingham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hogarth
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dickinson
authors.forename: Molly
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Janowski
authors.forename: Aleksandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nikitina
authors.forename: Theodora
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Duka
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness; D015982:Bias; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D013375:Substance Withdrawal Syndrome; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013663:Teaching; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder; D055815:Young Adult