A Single Session of Attentional Bias Modification Reduces Alcohol Craving and Implicit Measures of Alcohol Bias in Young Adult Drinkers

Background Attentional bias modification (ABM) techniques for reducing problematic alcohol consumption hold promise as highly accessible and cost‐effective treatment approaches. A growing body of literature has examined ABM as a potentially efficacious intervention for reducing drinking and drinking‐related cognitions in alcohol‐dependent individuals as well as those at‐risk of developing problem drinking habits. Methods This study tested the effectiveness of a single session of visual probe‐based ABM training in a cohort of 60 non‐treatment‐seeking young adult drinkers, with a focus on examining mechanisms underlying training efficacy. Participants were randomly assigned to a single session of active ABM training or a sham training condition in a laboratory setting. Measures of implicit drinking‐related cognitions (alcohol Stroop and an Implicit Association Task) and attentional bias (AB; alcohol visual probe) were administered, and subjective alcohol craving was reported in response to in vivo alcohol cues. Results Results showed that active ABM training, relative to sham, resulted in significant differences in measures of implicit alcohol‐related cognition, alcohol‐related AB, and self‐reports of alcohol craving. Mediation analysis showed that reductions in craving were fully mediated by ABM‐related reductions in alcohol‐Stroop interference scores, suggesting a previously undocumented relationship between the 2 measures. Conclusions Results document the efficacy of brief ABM to reduce both implicit and explicit processes related to drinking, and highlight the potential intervention‐relevance of alcohol‐related implicit cognitions in social drinkers. A single laboratory session of attentional bias modification (ABM) in young adult drinkers resulted in significant reductions in bias toward alcohol‐related stimuli across three cognitive tasks, as well as immediate, post‐training reductions in cravings elicited by in‐vivo exposures to alcohol cues. In addition, ABM effects on craving were mediated by changes in attentional bias. Findings support the potential clinical utility of ABM as an accessible and cost‐effective treatment approach for reducing implicit biases that may be predictive of problem drinking.