Emotional stimuli and context moderate effects of nicotine on specific but not global affects.

Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that the effects of nicotine on affect are moderated by the presence or absence of emotionally positive and negative stimuli and by attentional choice to avoid attending to emotionally negative stimuli. Thirty-two habitual smokers were assigned to tasks allowing attentional freedom to look back and forth at two simultaneously presented pictures, while another 32 habitual smokers viewed single pictures without attentional choice. Picture contents in both tasks were one of four combinations: emotionally negative + neutral, negative + positive, positive + neutral, or neutral + neutral. Participants wore a nicotine patch on one day and placebo patch on another day. Nicotine reduced anxiety most when negative pictures were presented in combination with neutral pictures, but had no effects on anxiety when negative pictures were presented in combination with positive pictures and when negative pictures were not presented. In contrast, nicotine only reduced depressive affect when the participant had attentional choice between positive and negative pictures. Nicotine also enhanced PANAS positive affect and reduced PANAS negative affect, but these effects were not moderated by task manipulations. Overall, the findings support the view that nicotine's ability to reduce specific negative affects is moderated by emotional context and attentional freedom. Nicotine tended to enhance eye-gaze orientation to emotional pictures versus neutral pictures in women, but had no significant effect on eye-gaze in men.

Nicotine primes attention to competing affective stimuli in the context of salient alternatives.

“…Consistent with the view that attentional processes are important in the ability of nicotine to reduce negative affect, Kassel and Unrod, (2000) found that smokers reported less negative affect after smoking regular nicotine-delivery cigarettes (relative to low-nicotine ones) when engaged in a distracting activity, but tended to increase negative affect when emotionally benign distracters were not present. Gilbert, Riise, et al (2008) found that the effects of nicotine depended on the nature of the emotional stimuli in the environment and the emotional state that was assessed. Further research is needed to better understand the contexts that promote when and how nicotine alters attention and affect.…”

The Psychology of the Smoker

“…Consistent with such psychological resource/self-medication conceptions of smoking motivation, smokers tend to smoke more during stressful situations [20] and those attempting to quit smoking tend to relapse during stressful situations, even years after quitting [16]. A recent study [21] found that nicotine reduced anxiety most when unpleasant pictures were presented in combination with neutral pictures, but it had no effect on anxiety when unpleasant pictures were presented in combination with pleasant pictures or when unpleasant pictures were not presented. In contrast, nicotine only reduced depressive affect when the participant had attentional choice between pleasant and unpleasant pictures.…”

“…While there is a great deal of variability in the reported intensity of the effects of smoking and smoking abstinence [19], heavy, occasional and very light smokers report emotional calming effects (RDoC-NVS) from smoking [20]. These smoking motives and effects of smoking are to some extent specific to individuals and situations [3,21]. On one occasion, an individual may feel drowsy and smoke to become more stimulated and/or to focus his/her attention in order to complete an important task.…”

Evaluating Point of Sale Tobacco Marketing Using Behavioral Laboratory Methods

“…Eye tracking cameras, which measure AB by capturing eye gaze patterns (eg, fixation, dwell duration) to specific image features or to simultaneously displayed images, have been used to study smoking cues 83;84 and can be readily adapted to studying aspects of POS marketing. For example, one study compared larger graphic health warning (GHWs), smaller GHWs, or text-only warning labels embedded in cigarette advertising using eye tracking technology and found that GHWs attracted more attention than text-only warning, but there was no difference between sizes of GHWs.…”