Smoking expectancy mediates the conditioned responses to arbitrary smoking cues

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Psychology
• Neuroscience of Addiction
• Human Conditioning Research

Background:

• Classical conditioning is a potential mechanism underlying smokers' responses to smoking cues.
• Conscious awareness of stimulus-reinforcer contingencies may be necessary for classical conditioning in humans.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of contingency awareness in conditioned responses (craving, salivation) to smoking cues.
• To examine how instructions influencing awareness affect conditioned responses in smokers.

Main Methods:

• A discriminative classical conditioning paradigm with stimuli (CS+, CS-) paired or not with cigarette smoking (UCS).
• Two experiments involving groups instructed to discover (aware, AWR) or not discover (unaware, UWR) CS-UCS contingencies.
• Measurement of craving, salivation, and skin conductance responses to conditioned stimuli.

Main Results:

• Awareness (AWR) group showed potentiated craving responses to the smoking-associated cue (CS+) compared to the unaware (UWR) group.
• Salivation responses differed between groups, suggesting differential expectancies of smoking.
• Removing expectancy of smoking eliminated discriminative craving but facilitated compensatory salivation responses.

Conclusions:

• Arbitrary cues previously paired with smoking can elicit conditioned responses (CRs) in smokers.
• Facilitating awareness of stimulus-reinforcer contingencies potentiates craving CRs.
• Craving CRs can be eliminated by removing expectancy, while compensatory CRs may be facilitated.