The impact of emotional face stimuli on working memory performance among men and women with alcohol use disorder. (March 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lewis, Ben; Price, Julianne L.; Garcia, Christian C.; Ebner, Natalie C.; Nixon, Sara Jo
• Is Part Of: Addictive behaviors. Volume 114(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-03
• Subjects: Alcohol use disorder -- Cognition -- Emotion processing -- Working memory -- Social cognition; Substance abuse -- Periodicals; Alcoholism -- Periodicals; Drug addiction -- Periodicals; Nicotine addiction -- Periodicals; Smoking -- Periodicals; Gambling -- Psychological aspects -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 362.29
• DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106731
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-4603

Abstract

Highlights: Individuals with AUD evince deficits in appropriately ignoring irrelevant stimuli. AUD-associated deficits appear specific to stimuli with emotional valence. Control and AUD groups display equivalent performance for non-affective stimuli. AUD-associated deficits did not vary by specific emotion. Efficiency differences relative to controls appeared related to lower accuracy. Abstract: Background: Individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) often display compromise in emotional processing and non-affective neurocognitive functions. However, relatively little empirical work explores their intersection. In this study, we examined working memory performance when attending to and ignoring facial stimuli among adults with and without AUD. We anticipated poorer performance in the AUD group, particularly when task demands involved ignoring facial stimuli. Whether this relationship was moderated by facial emotion or participant sex were explored as empirical questions. Methods: Fifty-six controls (30 women) and 56 treatment-seekers with AUD (14 women) completed task conditions in which performance was advantaged by either attending to or ignoring facial stimuli, including happy, neutral, or fearful faces. Group, sex, and their interaction were independent factors in all models. Efficiency (accuracy/response time) was the primary outcome of interest. Results: An interaction between group and condition (F1, 107 = 6.03, p < .02) was detected. Individual comparisons suggested this interaction was driven by AUD-associated performance deficits when ignoring faces, whereas performance was equivalent between groups when faces were attended. Secondary analyses suggested little influence of specific facial emotions on these effects. Conclusions: These data provide partial support for initial hypotheses, with the AUD group demonstrating poorer working memory performance conditioned on the inability to ignore irrelevant emotional face stimuli. The absence of group differences when scenes were to be ignored (faces remembered) suggests the AUD-associated inability to ignore irrelevance is influenced by specific stimulus qualities.