Attentional bias towards supraliminal and subliminal smoking cues in smokers:

This study attempted to replicate findings of an attentional bias towards supraliminal and subliminal smoking cues in the dot-probe task for smokers. Food-related cues were used as a control due to its natural reward properties. Further, the effects of cognitive load during the dot-probe task on attentional bias was explored. Smokers (n=43) and non-smokers (n=41) completed two versions (load and no load) of a dot-probe task containing smokingand foodrelated cues, as well as subliminal smoking cues (16.7 ms presentation-time). In the smokers, attentional bias towards smoking cues was significant under cognitive load and approaching significance with no load. The bias in smokers was larger than that of non-smokers, significantly so in the load condition. Bias towards smoking cues was also larger than bias towards food cues, suggesting the attention-grabbing properties of smoking cues are stronger than that of a natural reward cue. Smokers’ attentional bias towards subliminal smoking cues was negative, providing no evidence of attentional bias effects in subliminal conditions, however the size of the bias correlated significantly with self-reported urge to smoke. The limitations of methods using subliminally presented cues, the nature of non-conscious associations and individual differences in how cognitive load affected participants are discussed in relation to future research.