Alcohol belongs here: Assessing alcohol-related inhibitory control with a contextual Go/No-Go Task

Pennington, Charlotte R.; Monk, Rebecca L.; Qureshi, Adam W.; Heim, Derek

Abstract

There is a growing awareness of the need to explore the social and environmental milieus that drive alcohol consumption and related cognitions. The current study examined the extent to which alcoholcongruent and incongruent drinking contexts modulate alcohol-related inhibitory control using a novel go/no-go task. One hundred and eight participants (M age = 20 years; SD = 4.87) were instructed to inhibit their responses to visual alcoholic (alcohol/no-go condition, n = 50) or nonalcoholic stimuli (alcohol/go condition, n = 58) depicted in an alcohol-congruent (pub), incongruent (library), or context-free (control) condition. Participants in the alcohol/go condition exhibited higher false alarm rates (FAR) toward nonalcoholic stimuli and faster reaction times (RTs) to alcoholic stimuli depicted in the alcohol-congruent and incongruent context compared with the alcohol/no-go condition. In contrast, FAR toward alcoholic stimuli (alcohol/no-go condition) were not significantly affected by drinking context, but RT was faster when nonalcoholic stimuli were presented in alcohol-incongruent (i.e., library) compared with alcohol-congruent (i.e., pub) contexts. The discussion turns to potential explanations for these findings, suggesting that social drinkers might exhibit approach tendencies toward alcoholic images that translate into errors toward nonalcoholic stimuli, and that image complexity influences response inhibition.

Citation

Pennington, C. R., Monk, R. L., Qureshi, A. W., & Heim, D. (2019). Alcohol belongs here: Assessing alcohol-related inhibitory control with a contextual Go/No-Go Task. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 27(5), 455-465. https://doi.org/10.1037/pha0000256

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 6, 2018
• Online Publication Date: May 23, 2019
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Feb 26, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 26, 2019
• Journal: Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology
• Print ISSN: 1064-1297
• Electronic ISSN: 1936-2293
• Publisher: American Psychological Association
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 455-465
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/pha0000256
• Keywords: alcohol consumption, Go/No-Go task, inhibitory control, social context, environment
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/856165
• Publisher URL: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/pha/index
• Additional Information: Additional Information : ©American Psychological Association, 2019. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/pha/index