title: Investigating biases of attention and memory for alcohol-related and negative words in alcohol-dependents with and without major depression after day-clinic treatment.
abstract: This study aimed to investigate attentional and memory biases in alcohol-dependents with and without major depression compared to healthy controls. We assumed that both groups of alcohol-dependents would show attentional and memory biases for alcohol-related words. For the alcohol-dependents with depression, we additionally expected both types of biases for negative words. Alcohol-dependents without co-morbidity (Alc) and alcohol-dependents with major depression (D-Alc) as well as control participants with a moderate consumption of alcohol (Con) completed an alcohol Stroop task and a directed forgetting paradigm using word stimuli from three categories: neutral, negative, and alcohol-related. Stroop effects showed that not only alcohol-dependents but also control participants were more distracted by alcohol-related than by negative words. In the directed forgetting procedure, all participants showed a significant effect for each word-category, including alcohol-related and negative words. The D-Alc-group memorized more alcohol-related than negative to-be-remembered words. The results do not corroborate the hypothesis of more pronounced attentional and memory biases in alcohol-dependents. However, in alcohol-dependents with depression a memory bias for alcohol-related material was found, suggesting that this group may be more pre-occupied with alcohol than patients without such co-morbidity.
authors.affiliation: Research-Department, Clinic of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Bethel, Ev. Hospital Bielefeld, Germany. Electronic address: christina.fridrici@evkb.de.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fridrici
authors.affiliation: Research-Department, Clinic of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Bethel, Ev. Hospital Bielefeld, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Driessen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Charité University Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wingenfeld
authors.affiliation: Research-Department, Clinic of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Bethel, Ev. Hospital Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kremer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kissler
authors.affiliation: Research-Department, Clinic of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Bethel, Ev. Hospital Bielefeld, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Beblo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D015897:Comorbidity; D003463:Cues; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D057190:Stroop Test
keywords: Alcohol Stroop; Alcoholism; Directed forgetting; Major depression