Cognitive Control Mechanisms in Male Smokers Mediate Difficulty in Disengaging Attention from Cigarette-Related Cues

Attentional control abilities can affect a substance user's attentional bias toward substance-related cues; however, research on this mechanism remains limited.

This study used a dot-probe task to investigate the attentional processing mechanisms of smokers with different attentional control abilities for cigarette-related cues.

In total, 136 male smokers completed a flanker task to assess their attentional control ability. The attentional control scores of the participants were sorted from low to high, with the top 27% (36 participants) belonging to the high-attentional control group and the bottom 27% (36 participants) belonging to the low-attentional control group. Both groups then completed a dot-probe task to assess their attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues.

The low attentional control group exhibited a significantly longer reaction time to inconsistent than to consistent trials (p < 0.001); meanwhile, the attentional bias and disengaging indices of smokers with low attentional control abilities were significantly greater than 0. No significant differences were found in the high attentional control group.

In smokers, attentional control abilities regulate attentional disengagement difficulties toward cigarette-related cues. Smokers with low attentional control ability may have an attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues due to difficulties in disengaging from cigarette-related cues, which may be an important factor in maintaining cigarette use. These results may guide approaches for the prevention of smoking and auxiliary treatment for smoking cessation.