* indicates graduate student working under Dr. Lang’s supervision
Casbon* et al. (2003)
We tested the hypothesis that impaired behavioral performance during intoxication results partly from alcohol’s deleterious effects on cognitive control. The impact of alcohol on perseverative behavior was examined via an “n-back” working memory task that included manipulations of task complexity and prepotency of inclinations to respond or withhold responding. Thirty-two social drinkers (16 male) participated in either an alcohol (.075g/100ml) or a no-alcohol condition. Alcohol increased perseveration of prepotent, task-inappropriate response patterns only under cognitively demanding (heavy memory load) conditions. This effect was evident for both commission errors (response persistence despite contingencies altered to require restraint) and omission errors (failure to respond when contingencies were revised to encourage action). Findings suggested that alcohol-induced perseveration arises from impairments in cognitive control.
Curtin* et al. (2001)
Determining how cognition and emotion interact is pivotal to an understanding of human behavior and its disorders. Available data suggest that changes in emotional reactivity and behavior associated with drinking are intertwined with alcohol's effects on cognitive processing. In the study reported here, the authors demonstrated that alcohol dampens anticipatory fear and response inhibition in human participants -- not by directly suppressing subcortical emotion centers, as posited by traditional tension-reduction theories -- but instead by impairing cognitive-processing capacity. Ss were 48 right-handed undergraduates aged 21 yrs or older who reported recent experience with moderate doses of alcohol, and had no alcohol problem or other contraindicating medical condition. During intoxication, reduction in fear response (assessed via startle potentiation) occurred only under dual-stimulus conditions, and coincided with reduced attentional processing of threat cues as evidenced by brain response (assessed via P3 event-related potentials). The results are consistent with higher cortical mediation of alcohol's effects on fear, and illustrate more broadly how disruption of a cognitive process can lead to alterations in emotional reactivity and adaptive behavior.
Breiner* et al. (1999)
Argues that craving, understood as a unidimensional desire to indulge in an addictive behavior, is only one component of the mental processes that influence drinking and other psychoactive substance use behaviors. Alcohol-related cues can set in motion a dynamic competition between inclinations to approach drinking and inclinations to avoid drinking. Craving can thus be integrated into a comprehensive model of decision-making in which ambivalence or conflict is a key element. The relative strength of each component of alcohol-related cue reactivity can fluctuate over time as well as in response to both subjective states and environmental circumstances. Simultaneously and independently evaluating these opposing responses puts clinicians in a position to influence the relative weight that the patient assigns to the positive and negative outcomes of alcohol consumption to thereby promote better treatment planning and outcomes.
Lang & Patrick (1999)
This critical review begins with an assertion of the key role that emotion plays in a wide range of theories of drinking and alcoholism. The authors then proceed to develop a multidimensional-multilevel model of emotion and describe alcohol's effects on the psychophysiological indices of neurobehavioral processes that underlie it, evaluating recent, pertinent literature within this framework. The primary focus is on laboratory analogue investigations of a particular aspect of the alcohol-emotion relationship, namely, the impact of acute alcohol intoxication on human psychophysiological response to emotional stimuli. The authors also provide an illustration of how their approach can be applied, using the example of fear responding, and offer recommendations for future research.
Lang et al. (1975)
In this classic study of the effects of drinking on aggressive behavior, 96 male undergraduates were assigned to one of eight experimental conditions in a 2 * 2 * 2 factorial design. To control fully for alcohol expectation effects, 48 Ss were led to believe that they would be drinking alcohol (vodka and tonic), and 48 believed they would be drinking only tonic water. Within each of these 2 groups, 24 Ss actually received alcohol, but 24 were given only tonic. Following the beverage administration, 48 Ss were provoked to aggress by exposing them to an insulting confederate, whereas control Ss experienced a neutral interaction. Aggression was assessed by the intensity and duration of shocks administered to the confederate on a modified version of the Buss aggression apparatus that involves putative administration of shocks to a partner. The only significant determinant of aggression was the alcohol expectation factor: Ss who believed they had consumed alcohol were more aggressive than Ss who believed they had consumed a nonalcoholic beverage, regardless of the actual alcohol content of their drinks. Ss receiving alcohol, however, showed a significant increase in a reaction time measure, regardless of the expectation condition. Provocation to aggress was also a significant determinant of aggression, but it did not interact with the beverage conditions. These results suggest the need to consider psychosocial as well as pharmacological variables that can influence the social behavior of drinkers.
Pelham & Lang (1993)
This analytic review discusses a series of laboratory experiments examining the relationship between parental alcohol consumption and deviant child behavior. The studies were designed to evaluate the familial influences that two disinhibitory disorders (viz., parental alcohol problems and externalizing disorders of childhood such as ADHD), may have on one another. It appears that (1) alcohol consumption has deleterious effects on the management strategies that parents use to control children's deviant behavior and that (2) children's deviant behavior increases parental distress and alcohol consumption. These effects appear to be moderated by such variables as parental gender, marital status (for women), familial risk for alcohol problems, and parent and child psychopathology, but the principal conclusion to be drawn from the results is that the relationship between childhood behavior problems and parental drinking problems is probably best described in terms of a bi-directional or transactional model of influence.
Lang & Patrick (2000-2005) Abstract of currently active research grant
The relationship between acute alcohol intoxication and emotional response is fundamental to virtually all major theories of alcohol use, abuse, and dependence. Yet, despite this pivotal role, surprisingly little is known about the processes and mechanisms that underlie the link, or even the conditions under which alcohol can be expected to alter affective reactions. Our proposal applies sophisticated psychophysiological measures of affect and cognition, within the framework of a multidimensional-multilevel conceptualization of emotion, in an effort to advance understanding of the effects of acute alcohol intoxication on emotional response. Our extensive preliminary studies indicate that the impact of alcohol on affective responding occurs through its action on complex information processing abilities, rather than at the level of primitive motive systems representing basic appetitive and defensive dispositions. We propose five interrelated experimental analogue studies designed to extend evaluation of this hypothetical cognitive mediation of the alcohol-emotion nexus by focusing on potentially interactive psychological processes. Each involves use of the eyeblink component of the startle reflex to index the valence of ongoing “action dispositions” at frequent intervals and in connection with a variety of task manipulations designed to vary demands on cognitive resources that might be compromised by intoxication. The startle reflex is useful because it has been reliably shown that reactions to startle “probes” (sudden, intense sensory stimuli such as loud noises) are affectively-modulated (i.e., potentiated when one is threatened, but attenuated when one anticipates reward). We also plan to employ the P300 component of ERP to track attentional processes simultaneous with the startle probe evaluations in several of the studies. Specific experiments are designed to contrast the negligible effects of alcohol on simple, explicit fear conditioning with its effective reduction of unpleasant affect when aversive cues are embedded in complex divided attention tasks, contextual associations, and passive-avoidance conflict situations. By assessing affective reactions and cognitive demands simultaneously we should also be able to draw meaningful inferences about the brain mechanisms underlying alcohol’s effects on emotion.