Preattentive processing of alcohol stimuli

An experiment was conducted to test the automatic analysis of briefly presented alcohol stimuli in alcohol-dependent individuals. Alcoholics and controls were exposed to four different conditions: two brief (30 ms) and two long (130 ms) exposure conditions, each containing alcoholic and non-alcoholic pictures. Heart rate (HR) interbeat intervals were recorded and phasic cardiac responses assessed. Alcoholics had a stronger initial HR deceleration after exposure to masked alcohol slides compared with masked control slides, indicating a preattentive analysis of alcohol stimuli. This initial HR deceleration in the masked condition suggests an automatic attentional focusing to degraded alcohol cues. No such attentional effect was found when the pictures were presented unmasked and were clearly perceived. The implication of these results for the understanding of relapse in addictive behavior is discussed.