Abstract:
Holistic perception is a special form of automatic and experience dependent processing that prioritises objects of interest through the visual system. We therefore speculated that higher levels of alcohol consumption may be associated with enhanced holistic perception for alcohol cues. In our first experiment, we confirmed this hypothesis by showing that increasing regular alcohol usage was associated with greater holistic perception of alcohol, but not non-alcohol, cues. We replicated this finding in a second experiment, but confirmed drink-specific holistic perception for lager cues was not predicted by experience with that drink, but general alcohol usage. In our final experiment when alcohol images were absent from the task, higher levels of alcohol consumption predicted decreased holistic perception for non-rewarding cues. Alcohol use is therefore linked to inverse alterations in holistic perception for alcohol versus non-alcohol cues, with the latter\'s effects context dependent. We hypothesise that such inverse relationships may be due to limited cortical resources becoming reutilised for alcohol cues at the expense of other stimuli. Future work will be required to determine holistic perception\'s role in maintaining addiction, its predictive value in successful abstinence, and its relationship with characteristics of addiction such as cue reactivity, attentional biases and personality traits.
摘要:
整体感知是自动和经验相关处理的一种特殊形式,它通过视觉系统优先考虑感兴趣的对象。因此,我们推测,较高的饮酒水平可能与对酒精线索的整体感知增强有关。在我们的第一个实验中,我们证实了这一假设,表明增加定期饮酒与更全面的酒精感知有关,但不是非酒精,提示。我们在第二个实验中复制了这一发现,但是,通过使用该饮料的经验,无法预测对啤酒的特定于饮料的整体感知,但一般酒精的使用。在我们最后的实验中,当任务中没有酒精图像时,较高的饮酒水平预示着对无回报线索的整体感知下降。因此,酒精的使用与酒精与非酒精线索的整体感知的反向改变有关,与后者的影响上下文相关。我们假设,这种反比关系可能是由于有限的皮质资源以其他刺激为代价重新利用酒精信号所致。未来的工作将需要确定整体感知在维持成瘾中的作用,它对成功禁欲的预测价值,及其与成瘾特征如提示反应性的关系,注意偏见和人格特质。