Attentional Biases and Their Association with Substance-Use-Related Problems and Addictive Behaviors: The Utility of a Gamified Value-Modulated Attentional Capture Task

Background. Attentional biases towards reward stimuli have been implicated in psychopathology, specifically in substance use-related problems. The value-modulated attentional capture (VMAC) task assesses such reward-related biases. The VMAC task has been employed in numerous lab studies, however, it is rather tedious to do. We therefore tested a gamified online version of the VMAC that aimed to increase participant engagement. Our primary goal was to examine how VMAC is associated with both substance use-related problems and addictive behaviors, and whether this association is moderated by general cognitive control. Methods. We recruited an online community sample with 285 participants, including heavy alcohol users. All participants completed a novel gamified version of the VMAC task and measures of substance use and addictive behaviors (addictive-like eating behavior, problematic smartphone use). Participants also completed the Stroop Adaptive Deadline Task as a measure of general cognitive control. Results. The gamified VMAC task successfully identified value-modulated attentional capture effects towards high-reward stimuli. We found no significant associations between VMAC scores and problematic alcohol or cannabis use or addictive behaviors. General cognitive control did not moderate the association between VMAC and any problem behavior. In an exploratory analysis, self-reported problems with cognitive functions were found to be associated with more alcohol-, and cannabis-related problems, as well as more addictive behaviors.Conclusions. Our study is one of the first to provide evidence for the utility of the gamified version of the VMAC task in capturing attentional reward biases. Self-reported problems with cognitive functions represent a transdiagnostic dimension underlying psychopathology.