The Effects of Training to Reduce Automatic Action Tendencies Toward Alcohol Using the Virtual Alcohol Approach-Avoidance Task in Heavy Social Drinkers.

This study aimed to reduce the approach tendency toward alcohol among heavy social drinkers using the Virtual Alcohol Approach-Avoidance Training Task training. A total of 28 heavy social drinkers were randomly assigned to either the training group (n = 14) or the control group (n = 14). The training group was implicitly trained to avoid situations that involved drinking alcohol and to approach situations that involved drinking nonalcoholic beverages. On the other hand, the control group received a sham training condition with the same ratio of approach or avoidance of drinking either alcohol or a nonalcoholic beverage. All participants made three visits in a period of 2-3 weeks to participate in either the training or sham training. As a result, the training group showed a decrease in implicit approach tendencies toward alcohol, but not in explicit craving for alcohol. In contrast, the control group showed an increase in both implicit approach tendencies and explicit craving toward alcohol. These results indicate that the virtual reality training to avoid alcohol-related stimuli or environments might reduce automatic action tendencies toward alcohol, while simply being exposed to alcohol-related stimuli or environments might increase craving for alcohol in the sham training group. Our findings also suggest that, including not only visual stimuli but also auditory stimuli in a virtual environment might be a tool for changing approach bias.

Development of a Virtual Approach-Avoidance Task to Assess Alcohol Cravings.

The aim of the present study was to develop a new approach-avoidance task in a virtual environment that could be used to assess the response to virtual alcohol-related situations by heavy social drinkers (HSDs) and light social drinkers (LSDs). Thirty-six male undergraduates (18 HSDs, 18 LSDs) responded to signals when they pulled or pushed a joystick after watching scenes of alcohol- or nonalcohol-related situations in a virtual environment. The HSD group spent more time on moving away from alcohol-related situations than nonalcohol-related situations. We found that the HSD group had difficulty in avoiding alcohol-related situations in the virtual environment. The Virtual Approach-Avoidance Task might more accurately measure the levels of social drinkers' craving to drink as it provides realistic situations and allows individuals to be immersed in virtual environments.

Effects of the combination of P3-based GKT and reality monitoring on deceptive classification.

The study aimed to investigate whether a combination of the P3-based Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) and reality monitoring (RM) distinguished between individuals who are guilty, witnesses, or informed, and using both tests provided more accurate information than did the use of either measure alone. Participants consisted of 45 males that were randomly and evenly assigned to three groups (i.e., guilty, witness, and informed). The guilty group conducted a mock crime where they intentionally crashed their vehicle into another vehicle in a virtual environment (VE). As those in the witness group drove their own vehicles, they observed the guilty groups' vehicle crash into another vehicle. The informed group read an account and saw screenshots of the accident. All participants were instructed to insist that they were innocent. Subsequently, they performed the P3-based GKT and wrote an account of the accident for the RM analysis. A higher P3 amplitude corresponded to how well the participants recognized the presented stimulus, and a higher RM score corresponded to how well the participants reported vivid sensory information and how much less they reported uncertain information. Findings for the P3-based GKT indicated that the informed group showed lower P3 amplitude when presented with the probe stimulus than did the guilty and witness groups. Regarding the RM analysis, the informed group obtained higher RM scores on visual, temporal, and spatial details and lower scores on cognitive operations than the guilty and witness groups. Finally, discriminant analysis revealed that the combination of the P3-based GKT and RM more accurately distinguished between the three groups than the use of either measure alone. The findings suggest that RM may build upon a weakness of the P3-based GKT's. More specifically, it may build upon its susceptibility to the leakage of information about the crime, therefore helping protect innocent individuals who have information about a crime from being perceived as guilty.