Flexible emotion-based decision-making behavior varies in current and former smokers
Zoe Briggs1, Martin O'Connor1, Emily K Jollans1
1School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Addictive Behaviors
|March 10, 2015
Summary
Former smokers, like current smokers, exhibit impaired decision-making. However, former smokers demonstrate better cognitive flexibility and contingency awareness, similar to non-smokers.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Suboptimal decision-making, characterized by prioritizing short-term gains and lacking cognitive flexibility, is central to substance use.
- Research on nicotine users primarily examines addiction, with limited understanding of decision-making in former smokers.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate decision-making processes in former smokers compared to current smokers and non-smokers.
- To assess emotion-based and flexible decision-making in these groups.
Main Methods:
- Participants included non-smokers (n=21), former daily smokers (n=23), and current daily smokers (n=24).
- The contingency-shifting variant Iowa Gambling Task (csIGT) was used to evaluate decision-making under changing reward/punishment conditions.
- Subjective ratings were collected at regular intervals throughout the task.
Main Results:
- Both current and former smokers performed worse than non-smokers on the standard csIGT decision-making task.
- Former smokers and non-smokers showed higher awareness of reward/punishment contingencies than current smokers.
- Former smokers and non-smokers exhibited superior performance on contingency-shifting blocks compared to current smokers.
Conclusions:
- Both current and former smokers exhibit suboptimal decision-making compared to non-smokers.
- Former smokers demonstrate cognitive flexibility and contingency awareness comparable to non-smokers, distinguishing them from current smokers.
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