Alcohol-Related and Negatively Valenced Cues Increase Motor and Oculomotor Disinhibition in Social Drinkers

Our aim in the present study was to investigate the psychological mechanisms that underlie the disinhibiting effects of alcohol cues in social drinkers by contrasting motor and oculomotor inhibition after exposure to alcohol-related, emotional, and neutral pictures. We conducted 2 studies in which social drinkers completed modified stop-signal (laboratory) and antisaccade (online) tasks in which positive, negative, alcohol-related, and neutral pictures were embedded. We measured cue-specific disinhibition in each task, and investigated whether sex and drinking status moderated the effects of pictures on disinhibition. Across both studies, comparable increases in disinhibition were observed in response to both alcohol and negatively valenced pictures, relative to both positive and neutral pictures. These differences in disinhibition could not be explained by differences between picture sets in arousal or valence ratings. There was no clear evidence of moderation by sex or drinking status. Secondary analyses demonstrated that alcohol-specific disinhibition was not reliably associated with individual differences in alcohol consumption or craving. These results suggest that the disinhibiting properties of alcohol-related cues cannot be attributed solely to their valence or arousing properties, and that alcohol cues may have unique disinhibiting properties.