title: Reduced attentional blink for gambling-related stimuli in problem gamblers.
abstract: Although there is considerable information concerning the attentional biases in psychoactive substance use and misuse, much less is known about the contribution of attentional processing in problem gambling. The aim of this study was to examine whether problem gamblers (PrG) exhibit attentional bias at the level of the encoding processing stage. Forty PrG and 35 controls participated in an attentional blink (AB) paradigm in which they were required to identify both gambling and neutral words that appeared in a rapid serial visual presentation. Explicit motivation (e.g., intrinsic/arousal, extrinsic, amotivation) toward the gambling cues was recorded. A diminished AB effect for gambling-related words compared to neutral targets was identified in PrG. In contrast, AB was similar when either gambling-related or neutral words were presented to controls. Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between the reduced AB for gambling-related words and the sub-score of intrinsic/arousal motivation to gamble in PrG. Such findings suggest that the PrG group exhibits an enhanced ability to process gambling-related information, which is associated with their desire to gamble for arousal reasons. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed.
authors.affiliation: FNRS, Psychological Medicine Laboratory, CHU-Brugmann, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Place Van Gehuchten 4, 1020 Brussels, Belgium. dbrevers@ulb.ac.be
authors.forename: Damien
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Brevers
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cleeremans
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tibboel
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bechara
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kornreich
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Verbanck
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Noël
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D054518:Attentional Blink / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*