Research Project Proposal Assignment

Current Issues 2010 - 2011

1. Student
Name: Hielke Prins
UvA student number:
E-mail:
Track: Cognitive Sciences
Proposal theme: Addiction

2. Supervision

The tutor is:

Name:
Phone number: E-mail:

The reviewer is:

Name:
Track:
Phone number: E-mail:

Title of the Research Project

The role of a bias in processing versus a network of motivating propositions for

alcohol-related cues in impairment of inferential processes for heavy drinkers
3. Project Description

3.1. Aim of the Research - Summarize the aim of the intended research (max. 150 words)
Extensive research on implicit cognition in addictive behavior previously revealed a strong cognitive bias for
substance-related cues. Such a bias has been demonstrated to affect response times in lower level attentional
conflict tasks. More recently it has been shown that a cognitive bias for alcohol-related cues also impairs
performance of heavy drinkers on the more complex task of Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL).

Although the results establish an effect of a cognitive bias on overall cognitive functioning, the flip side is the loss
of specific explanations for the observed decrease in performance due to this bias. The aim of the research
proposed here is to differentiate between a potential role for memory (stimulus related) and procedural (response
related) memory effects triggered by the alcohol-related cues. The AGL task will be adapted to include an
assessment of triggered automatic tendencies as well as a manipulation of the relative amount of substance-
related cues.

3.2. Prior Research - comprehensible literature review of the research field, converging upon the research
questions (max. 400 words)
• Describe the state of affairs in the current research field based on the existing body of literature
• Elaborate on the theoretical framework
• Clarify how previous research leads to the research questions of the current proposal
A growing body of evidence suggests cognitive underpinnings of addictive behavior up to the level of craving [1].
It is argued that biases in processing of addiction-related stimuli, and in a network of propositions motivating
addictive behavior, occurred at an implicit level of awareness and could thus be studied using methods that
assess such implicit cognitive biases [2]. Implicit cognitive processes taken to underlie addictive behavior range
from substance-related (a) attentional biases or (b) memory associations to (c) action tendencies triggered by the
substance [3].

In a dot-probe task for instance, substance-related and neutral cues are presented simultaneously, immediately
followed by a dot-probe replacing one of the stimuli. Studies reveal faster reaction times for dots replacing
alcohol-related stimuli in heavy drinkers [4]. Results from addiction-Stroop tasks support an effect on further
processing for a broad range of substances, amongst them alcohol [5]. Heavy substance users react slower for
substance-related than for neutral words when asked to name the color of these words. Finally, tendencies
towards approaching alcohol-related stimuli in heavy drinkers has been established using an Implicit Association
Test (IAT) and Approach-Avoidance Tasks (AAT). The former establishing preference for compatible stimulus-
response mappings between approach related words and substance-related cues [6], the latter between those
cues and approach actions like pulling a joystick [7], [8].

Most of these task requires only lower level non-inferential processes. Pothos and Cox propose an Artificial
Grammar Learning (AGL) task as an alternative method of investigation [9]. In an AGL task participants have to
learn the rules behind sequences of symbols from examples that follow these rules. Afterwards, their task is to
judge new sequences on grammaticality, that is whether or not they are following the implicitly learned rules.
Pothos and Cox compared accuracy of grammaticality judgments from heavy drinkers to those from light drinkers.
Heavy drinkers were less accurate when the AGL task used sequences of alcohol-related as opposed to
unrelated cues. Crucially, nature of the cues is irrelevant when performing the task, only the order matters [10].

Results from the AGL task show effects of a bias towards substance-related cues on higher level cognition but
obfuscate the role of individual processes (a-c) causing the bias. Extension of the AGL task may allow to assess
the contribution of different components to the cognitive bias. I propose a manipulation of the amount of
substance-related versus neutral cues, while measuring automatic action tendencies using an approach-
avoidance test.

3.3. Key Questions - this is the essence of the proposal. Testable hypotheses should be derived from the
key question; the relation between theory and research hypotheses should be clearly specified
a) Formulate the research questions based on previous research (max. 200 words)
The main research question under investigation is to what extend the cognitive bias could be decomposed in (a)
biased attention towards substance-related cues, (b) memory associations with these cues and (c) action
tendencies triggered by these cues.

An answer on this question will be partly covered by answers on the following subquestions:
1. Does the amount of substance-related cues affect the impact of the cognitive bias towards addiction
impaired behavior on a task that requires multiple aspects of cognition? Is the impact reflected in (1a)
reaction times and (1b) accuracy of participants?
2. Does the impact on the task correlate with acquired automatic behavioral response tendencies?
b) Translate the specific research questions into testable research hypotheses (max. 250 words)
1a. Assuming a role for biased attention, reaction times of participants should affect trials presenting
sequences with a relative large amount of alcohol-related cues more than others, independent from their
grammaticality.
1b. Memory associations with the cues are expected to cause more interference when alcohol-related cues
are more numerous, leading to the prediction that accuracy is lower for trials with more alcohol-related
cues as opposed to those with more non-related cues.
2. Estimation of the cognitive bias acquired using an adapted approach-avoidance paradigm, may or may
not correlate with accuracy of participants depending on to what extent memory associations (1b)
explain impaired performance on the task.

3.4. Intended Results - clarify what the implication of possible outcomes would be (per hypothesis) for
the research questions as well as for the theory (max. 400 words)
• To what extent can the proposed research provide an answer to the research questions?
• What are the (alternative) interpretations if the results do (not) match the expectations?
1a. The effect of biased attention is believed to maintain as opposed to orient attention to alcohol-related
cues in heavy drinkers [11]. A bias for alcohol-related pictures was only found when they were
presented for more then the 100-200 millisecond interval within which orientation is believed to take
place, consistent with the suggestion that maintained attention is more likely to be affected by
motivational influences then orienting attention is.
Following this line of argumentation, increased attention towards multiple alcohol-related stimuli is
expected to consume ever more of participants reaction time. No effect on reaction times between
completely neutral sequences (no alcohol-related stimuli) and sequences containing one or more
alcohol-related cues seems unlikely in the light of prior research, but would argue against the role of
attention in a cognitive bias towards addictive behavior. An effect of presence versus absence,
independent from the precise amount of alcohol-related stimuli, may be reason to reconsider attribution
to maintaining rather then orienting attention.
1b. Most theories of memory systems that may be involved in establishment of an implicit cognitive bias
towards substance-related stimuli [3] will predict an effect of repetition, as established for words and
pictures [12]. Indirect evidence for the role of associative networks in addiction-related behavior comes
from a study showing differences in use of alcohol-related words in sentence generation between light,
moderate and heavy drinkers [13].
To my knowledge no previous research directly addressed the effect of repetition of substance-related
cues despite being firmly rooted in implicit memory. As an initial hypotheses repetition of substance-
related stimuli is expected to increase interference with the unrelated task of grammaticality judgments,
thereby reducing accuracy on the AGL task.
2. Grammaticality and non-grammaticality are features of the sequences, not of the actual stimuli [10].
Participants should react accordingly but may show a bias towards the response that is mapped to
approach behavior (pull) for sequences containing alcohol-related stimuli, as in stimulus irrelevant
portrait versus landscape conditions for the improved AAT [8].

The effects may not be completely independent from each other. Indeed, Pothos and Cox argue in favor of the
AGL paradigm precisely because the two hypothesis on the effects of alcohol abuse due to biases in processing
and motivating propositions [2] converge on the level of cognition required for the task [9]. It is therefore important
to study interaction between the factors using appropriate statistical tests.

4. Procedure

4.1. Operationalisation
a) Operationalise the research questions in a clear manner into a research design/strategy (+/- 200 words)
1. The artificial grammar learning task from Pothos and Cox will be adapted as described above. Rather
than two different sets of stimuli in two subsequent AGL tasks (alcoholic drinks and cities) a single set of
stimuli containing alcoholic (beer, wine, whiskey) and non-alcoholic drinks (cola, juice, water) will be
ordered according to a single set of grammar rules. Beverages will be represented using pictures rather
then words.
From these sequences members of a training and a test set will be drawn with an equal number of
grammatical and non-grammatical items but varying in the amount of alcoholic versus non-alcoholic
drinks. The influence of the amount of alcohol-related stimuli processed in a trial will be estimated by
studying its correlation with response times (1a) and accuracy (1b).
2. Participants will have to respond using a joystick instead of pressing 'good' and 'no good' buttons.
Grammaticality and non-grammaticality will be mapped to pull and push responses that cause zooming
in or out on the stimuli. Their accuracy in the test phase will be tested for correlation with an assessment
of their implicit bias using the approach-avoidance paradigm (AAT).
b) Describe the procedures for conducting the research and collecting the data (+/- 200 words)
Procedures remain similar to those used by Pothos and Cox: Two groups of heavy and light drinking participants
will judge test sequences on grammaticality. A number of approximately fifty drinking participants will be recruited.
They will be assigned to the two groups depending on the amount of alcohol units weekly consumed. Alcohol
consumption will be estimated using a post-experimental questionnaire, preferably the same as used by Pothos
and Cox (Quantitative and Qualitative Alcohol and Drug Inventory, Blount and Cox, 1993; available upon
request).

A brief rationale for task and mapping along the lines of Pothos and Cox will be provided. Participants will be told
to take (grammatical) or refuse (non-grammatical) an order served by a bartender trying to maximize the fit with
preferences of a customer. In case of reverse mapping, handing the money or taking it back could be equivalent.

A pilot study might be required to investigate whether potential interference between compatibility to both
categories can be overcome using visual stimuli, zooming or other manipulations (such as reversal of the
mapping towards grammatical-push and ungrammatical-pull). Previous use of the AAT indicates that the
sensation of approach and avoidance generated by zooming sufficiently disambiguates the task [14]. On the other
hand, Pothos and Cox consider grammaticality the dominant response in the test phase of an AGL task, which
supports reversing the mapping [9].

5. Ethically approved
Hereby I declare, as a student proposing this research as an assignment
for Current Issues, that this project is not part of a research that is
already or will be approved by an approved ethical committee.
Signature student

6. Literature/ References
List used literature:
[1] S. T. Tiffany, “A cognitive model of drug urges and drug-use behavior: role of automatic and nonautomatic
processes,” Psychological Review, vol. 97, no. 2, pp. 147-168, Apr. 1990.
[2] C. G. McCusker, “Cognitive biases and addiction: an evolution in theory and method,” Addiction, vol. 96, no.
1, pp. 47-56, Jan. 2001.
[3] A. W. Stacy and R. W. Wiers, “Implicit Cognition and Addiction: A Tool for Explaining Paradoxical Behavior,”
Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 551-575, Mar. 2010.
[4] J. M. Townshend and T. Duka, “Attentional bias associated with alcohol cues: differences between heavy
and occasional social drinkers,” PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY-BERLIN-, vol. 157, no. 1, p. 67–74, 2001.
[5] B. H. Johnsen, J. C. Laberg, W. M. Cox, A. Vaksdal, and al, “Alcoholic subjects’ attentional bias in the
processing of alcohol-related words.,” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 111-115, 1994.
[6] T. P. Palfai and B. D. Ostafin, “Alcohol-related motivational tendencies in hazardous drinkers: assessing
implicit response tendencies using the modified-IAT,” Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 41, no. 10, p.
1149–1162, 2003.
[7] M. Field, A. Kiernan, B. Eastwood, and R. Child, “Rapid approach responses to alcohol cues in heavy
drinkers,” Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 209-218, Sep. 2008.
[8] R. W. Wiers, M. Rinck, M. Dictus, and E. Van Den Wildenberg, “Relatively strong automatic appetitive
action‐tendencies in male carriers of the OPRM1 G‐allele,” Genes, Brain and Behavior, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 101-
106, Feb. 2009.
[9] E. M. Pothos and W. M. Cox, “Cognitive bias for alcohol-related information in inferential processes,” Drug
and Alcohol Dependence, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 235-241, May. 2002.
[10] G. T. M. Altmann, Z. Dienes, and A. Goode, “Modality Independence of Implicitly Learned Grammatical
Knowledge, , ,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, vol. 21, no. 4, pp.
899-912, Jul. 1995.
[11] M. Field, K. Mogg, J. Zetteler, and B. P. Bradley, “Attentional biases for alcohol cues in heavy and light
social drinkers: the roles of initial orienting and maintained attention,” Psychopharmacology, vol. 176, no. 1,
pp. 88-93, Apr. 2004.
[12] A. S. Brown, “Single and Multiple Test Repetition Priming in Implicit Memory,” Memory, vol. 4, no. 2, p. 159,
1996.
[13] S. Glautier and K. Spencer, “Activation of alcohol‐related associative networks by recent alcohol
consumption and alcohol‐related cues,” Addiction, vol. 94, no. 7, pp. 1033-1041, Jul. 1999.
[14] M. Rinck and E. S. Becker, “Approach and avoidance in fear of spiders,” Journal of Behavior Therapy and
Experimental Psychiatry, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 105-120, Jun. 2007.