Objective: Addicted people are characterized by enhanced attention for drug cues leading to drug use. However, there is little research on the component processes of attention in individuals with alcoholism. Here, we examine 2 distinct components of attention in abstinent alcohol-dependent individuals and social drinkers of alcohol, that is to say, the initial orienting to alcohol-related cues, and the maintenance of attention to them.Method: The present study used an ''alcohol'' version of the visual probe detection task with alcohol-related or neutral pictures being presented briefly (i.e., 50 ms), to assess initial orienting, or longer (i.e., 500 and 1,250 ms), to assess the maintenance of attention.Results: Only alcoholic patients were faster in detecting a probe displayed immediately after pictures related to alcohol presented for 50 ms than in detecting the same probe replacing nonalcohol-related pictures. However, when pictures were presented for 500 ms, only social alcohol drinkers were faster in detecting the probe replacing alcohol scenes. At a stimulus of 1,250 ms duration, no group showed attentional bias toward alcohol cues. In addition, the severity of alcoholism measured by the total number of prior detoxification treatments was positively correlated with the attentional bias (or ''attraction'') for alcohol pictures presented for 50 ms.Conclusions: These results show that, subsequent to initial visual orienting to alcohol-related cues, abstinent patients' attention was disengaged from these stimuli, thus suggesting a visual approachdisengagement attentional pattern. The influence of these findings on relapse was discussed.

Aim To study cognitive biases for alcohol-related cues on executive function tasks involving mental flexibility and response inhibition in polysubstance abusers with alcoholism. Design The responses to alcohol-related cues of detoxified polysubstance abusers with alcoholism and of non-addicts were compared. Setting The University of Iowa City, Iowa, USA. Participants Thirty detoxified polysubstance abusers with alcoholism (PSA) and 30 healthy non-substance abusers (CONT). Measurements Using the ' Alcohol Shifting Task', a variant of the go/no-go paradigm, we measured the response times and the accuracy of responses to targets and distracters. Sometimes the alcohol-related words were the targets for the 'go' response, with neutral words as distracters, sometimes the reverse. Several shifts in the type of the target occurred during the task. Findings Relative to CONT, PSA were generally slower to respond to targets, but the group difference was smaller when alcohol-related words were the targets. A signal detection analysis also indicated that relative to CONT, the PSA had more difficulties discriminating between targets and distracters (low d ¢ ), and they showed more signs of decision bias (low C), reflecting increased readiness to respond to both targets and distracters. However, these discrimination and inhibition deficits were more pronounced when alcohol-related words were the targets. Furthermore, the weaknesses in RT and C were more pronounced in PSA after shifting the targets from alcohol-related to neutral words, or vice versa. Conclusions These results suggest that PSA have cognitive biases towards information related to alcohol, and that these biases, as well as the poor executive functions (lower mental flexibility and response inhibition) revealed in PSA might be responsible for their failure to maintain abstinence.

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