The Effect of Alcohol Cue Exposure on Gambling-Related Attentional Biases and Cravings among Poker Players who Drink
Date
2019-08-29
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Abstract
Alcohol is one of the most common substances used in conjunction with gambling, but the impact it has on gambling cravings and behaviours is poorly understood. The present study sought to determine whether exposure to an alcohol cue increased gambling cravings and preferential attention to gambling images in an eye-tracking task. Male poker players (n = 59) and non-gamblers (n = 59) were randomly assigned to an alcohol or neutral cue condition. All participants completed the same eye-tracking task, which featured pairs of gambling, alcohol, and neutral images. Alcohol and gambling cravings were measured before and after cue expose and after the eye-tracking task. Contrary to hypotheses, gamblers in the alcohol cue condition did not experience an increase in gambling cravings compared to gamblers in the neutral cue condition. Additionally, there were no differences in the way that gambling images were viewed by gamblers based on condition. However, participants in the alcohol cue condition preferentially attended to alcohol images more than participants in the neutral cue condition. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
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Keywords
gambling, alcohol, cue reactivity, cross-cue reactivity
Citation
Ritchie, E. V. (2019). The Effect of Alcohol Cue Exposure on Gambling-Related Attentional Biases and Cravings among Poker Players who Drink (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.