Dataset Information

Studying Implicit Attitudes Towards Smoking: Event-Related Potentials in the Go/NoGo Association Task.

ABSTRACT: Cigarette smoking and other addictive behaviors are among the main preventable risk factors for several severe and potentially fatal diseases. It has been argued that addictive behavior is controlled by an automatic-implicit cognitive system and by a reflective-explicit cognitive system, that operate in parallel to jointly drive human behavior. The present study addresses the formation of implicit attitudes towards smoking in both smokers and non-smokers, using a Go/NoGo association task (GNAT), and behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) measures. The GNAT assesses, via quantifying participants' reaction times, the strength of association between a target category and either pole of an evaluative dimension (positive or negative). EEG analysis is performed to determine the temporal course of the event-related potential (ERP) components underlying Go/NoGo decisions and implicit attitude formation. Both smokers and non-smokers showed prolonged reaction times to smoking-related pictures when the pictures were coupled with positive evaluative words ("incongruent condition"). This indicates negative implicit attitudes towards smoking in both groups alike at the time point of the behavioral response (600-700 ms post-stimulus). However, only the non-smokers, not the smokers, were found to show a delay of the N200 component in the incongruent condition. This is interpreted as reflecting ambivalent or even positive implicit attitudes towards smoking in the smoker group at the time point of the N200 (300-400 ms post-stimulus). Our study thus provides evidence for the hypothesis that implicit attitudes are subject to changes within several hundred milliseconds after stimulus presentation, and can be altered in the course of their formation.

SUBMITTER: Wagner-Altendorf TA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7892465 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Studying Implicit Attitudes Towards Smoking: Event-Related Potentials in the Go/NoGo Association Task.

Wagner-Altendorf Tobias A TA van der Lugt Arie H AH Banfield Jane F JF Deibel Jacqueline J Cirkel Anna A Heldmann Marcus M Münte Thomas F TF

Frontiers in human neuroscience 20210205

Cigarette smoking and other addictive behaviors are among the main preventable risk factors for several severe and potentially fatal diseases. It has been argued that addictive behavior is controlled by an automatic-implicit cognitive system and by a reflective-explicit cognitive system, that operate in parallel to jointly drive human behavior. The present study addresses the formation of implicit attitudes towards smoking in both smokers and non-smokers, using a Go/NoGo association task (GNAT), ...[more]

PMID: 33613219

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Dataset Information

Studying Implicit Attitudes Towards Smoking: Event-Related Potentials in the Go/NoGo Association Task.

Publications

Studying Implicit Attitudes Towards Smoking: Event-Related Potentials in the Go/NoGo Association Task.

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