Cognitive Bias Towards Drug Related Words in a Natural Setting

Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 1

University of North Carolina at Wilmington Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 2

Abstract

The present study was designed to determine if there was a cognitive bias towards drug related words in people assessed in a natural setting. Based on previous research, a list was constructed of words either deemed positive emotional, negative emotional, neutral, or drug-related. The words were then carefully arranged on a flyer so that the four word types were dispersed and randomly placed throughout center message?. Researchers set out to survey 400 participants on their ability to recall as many words as possible after seeing the flyer for only a brief period of time. There were two separate settings, on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and off campus in the surrounding community. The results demonstrated, as we hypothesized, that the sample surveyed would have a cognitive bias towards drug–related words, compared to the other previously mentioned categories. The results also suggested that people surveyed off campus consistently recalled more words than participants surveyed on campus. The data analysis also inferred females continually out performed males in regard to the positive emotional, negative emotional, and neutral words; while males’ recall surpassed females’ regarding drug-related words. General conclusions and issues about the experiment are discussed, with suggestions on how to better investigate recall ability and cognitive biases.

. Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 3

Introduction

Our senses are assessable accessible or can access to thousands of different stimuli, while each day we only attend to a small amount. We are selective in our attention to these stimuli due to different factors of information processing. Motivation, novelty, and surprise may all influence where our attention is focused (Hedreen, et al.

2003). Cognitive or attentional bias can be described as the motivational tendency to acknowledge particular stimuli while neglecting other existing information. Broadly,

“attention may be seen as the set of mechanisms that control the way we perceive stimuli, select between response alternatives, store information in or retrieve it from memory, and distribute priorities among simultaneous tasks” (Kenemans, 2000).

Researchers have revealed an attentional bias in clinically anxious populations, smoking-related populations, in subjects with social phobiasphobias, and in subjects with eating disorders (Hedreen, et al. 2003)reference original works. Researchers have also demonstrated cognitive processing for aggression, eating-related, and high imagery sexual stimuli reference orig. here too.(Hedreen, et al. 2003).

It would be theoretically interesting to investigate whether the cognitive biases that have been observed with other areas would also be present regarding drug-related stimuli. “Recent theories propose that repeated drug use is associated with attentional and evaluative biases for drug-related stimuli, and that these cognitive biases are related to individual differences in subject craving” (Field, et al. 2004). “The motivational value of drug-related cues may contribute to drug seeking in humans. Consequently, drug-related stimuli are perceived as highly attractive and they grab attention” (Field, et al.

2004).These biases have only been measured in laboratory settings, which seem Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 4 unnatural, and do not fully explore the underlying motivational factors. Therefore, this study examines drug related stimuli in a more natural setting. How were words recalled in the lab, method? What is it about the lab that would not be generalizable?“The motivational value of drug-related cues may contribute to drug seeking in humans.

Consequently, drug-related stimuli are perceived as highly attractive and they grab attention” (Field, et al. 2004).

So, Tthe attraction of these particular stimuli will also be demonstrated through a simple recall task of drug-related words in a non-laboratory setting. Perhaps people that can correctly recall drug-related words have a heightened cognitive bias towards them because of an underlying motivationbut we did not address this…for discussion. In summary, the primary aim of this study is to investigate cognitive bias for drug related words, SS also analyzed across age, gender, and location. Why analyze across these factors too? What is your interest in regards to explanation for a cognitive bias? Our hypothesis is that adults will have an increased cognitive bias toward drug related words compared to other categorical word types. For example, sSome underlying motivational factors that predict this cognitive bias could include drug usage, familiarity, word image- ability, aversion to the stimulus, and possibly others. Are these to be found in this population in particular? However, with monetary and accessibility restraints, we could not create a thorough experiment measuring drug-use populations. Our hypothesis is that adults will have an increased cognitive bias toward drug related words compared to other categorical word types.

Method Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 5

Subjects

Approximately four hundred subjects were randomly approached to participate in our field setting incidental learning recall task. The experiment took place on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and off campus in the surrounding community. We included both males and females ranging from age 12-62

(M= 23.3, SD= 7.79). Probable subjects were only approached if walking alone, not talking on a cell phone or listening to headphones, and who appeared not to be in a hurry.

Consent and voluntary participation were required and subjects who declined were disregarded in the survey’s analysis. Subjects were not compensated monetarily for their participation.

Materials

Our materials consisted of a flyer followed by the administration of a brief anonymous survey by a the researcher. In detail AWK, the flyer consisted of a central phase “WANT TO MAKE SOME $$$” in 48 point font size. The surrounding words consisted of twelve neutral, six positive emotional, six negative emotional, and six drug related words all in 28 point size. All writing was typed in Times New Roman with black font on a white background (11 x 8 ½“). The thirty surrounding words were previously established and selected from a word rated library. The library contains words that have been matched for frequency of use, imagability, and emotionality using a Modified-

Paired Word Associates Taskbased on ratings of several hundred subjects in a previous study (Hedreen et al, 2003). Some examples of each of the word types are as follows, neutral: “laundry,” “dictionary;” positive emotional: “elation,” “friend;” negative emotional: “lonely,” “hypocrisy.” All of theThe drug-related words chosen for this study Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 6 included “addiction,” “syringe,” “drugs,” “sober,” “intoxicated,” “toke.” Our target words were equally and randomly dispersed among all eight regions of the flyer (See

Appendix 1). The words selected for each of the four categories were similarly proportioned to those from another word recall, laboratory-based experiment (Gayford et al.). These proportions were assigned in hopes to control for bias and prevent obviousness of testing purposes.

The subsequent survey inquired about the subject’s age, and gender, . and It then asked subjects to recall of as many words as possible from the previously viewed flyer.

An additional question, “Did you know you were going to be asked to recall these words, if so how?” was posed to prevent the possibility of obtaining a subject’s data who had previous knowledge of our experiment or had already been approached. If the participant answered yes along with a legitimate rationale, and proved produced an outstanding word recall performance, their data was excluded from our analysis. These questions were devised to observe the attentional bias to drug related words, compared to others word types, in a natural field setting. The survey concluded with the appropriate contact information to obtain further knowledge about our study.

Procedure

The researchers (how many?) positioned themselves in moderate pedestrian- traffic areas on and off the UNCW campus. With flyer in hand, the researcher randomly approached anticipated subjects politely requesting, “Hi, would you take a look at this?”

If the subject agreed then, they were given approximately five to twenty seconds, or until they began to inquire the flyer’s purpose, to scan the paper. Experimenters then courteously asked participants “Will you take a second to fill out a short psychological Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 7 survey?” If subjects complied, the previously described response survey was provided.

After completion, researchers collected the survey and thanked subject for their time and participation.

Results

Our experiment included four hundred participants, 190 males and 210 females.

Figure A 1 shows the mean percentage of word recall for each of the four word types.

Integrating both gender and location, percent of the neutral words were recalled with a mean (M) of 5.404 and standard deviation (SD) of 7.967, percent of positive emotional

(M=9.562, SD=13.583), percent of negative emotional (M=8.463, SD=11.715), and percent of drug-related words (M=11.395, SD=15.254). (See Appendix 2). Analysis of variance confirmed the statistical significance of differences attributable to word type recall, F (3, 399) = 20.09, p < .0001.

Next, Figure (2)B presents the differences of word recall across word type? between on and off campus locations. On average, off campus participants recalled more words for each category than on campus. However, as suggested by the data, location did not show a significant difference within each word type, F (1, 3) = .219, p > .05 (See

Appendix 2). Evaluating the average percent of drug words recalled, males consistently performed better than females in both on and off campus conditions (See Figure C).

Overall, comparisons between word type recall and gender infer a significant relationship, F (1, 3) = 3.851, p < .05. A closer analysis what kind of analysis? Was it significant?of mean percent recall between genders, within word type reveals females Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 8 surpassed males’ performance in recalling positive emotional, negative emotional, and neutral words, yet males outperformed females in recall of drug-related words.

Each word type category was broken down into individual words to show relative frequency for each, recalled out of the total sample population. Relevant percentages are as follows: “addiction” =20.75%, “drugs” =13.25%, “toke” =10%, “intoxicated” =9%,

“sober” =8%, “syringe” =7.75%, “love” =16.25%, “friend” =11.75%, “pimple” =25%,

“lonely” =4.25%, “klutz” =10.25%, “flowers” =8%, “microphone” =3.25%. Of all words,

“pimple” was recalled most frequently. For each category, the most recalled words are as follows: drug-related - “addiction,” positive emotional – “love,” negative emotional -

“pimple,” and neutral - “klutz.” However, the six drug-related words were recalled significantly more often compared to other words in the remaining categories. False alarms were also evaluated. Out of the 170 total falsely recalled words, eighteen were drug-related. Percentage?

Discussion

Our study concluded there is a cognitive bias towards drug-related words in a natural setting. As Figure A depicts, drug-related words were recalled at a significantly higher percentage compared to the other categories, and more than doubling that of neutral words. Interestingly, both positive and negative emotional words were also recalled at a higher relative frequency than that of neutral words. These results might suggest an underlying motivational factor for this drug bias, possibly due to increased familiarity with the subject matter. Perhaps this underlying drive, bias for drug related Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 9 stimuli could be tested by directly comparing drug usage and recall of drug-related words.

The data was examined across age, gender, and location. The results from the present study propose show that females have a greater ability to recall words from the flyer used, including neutral, positive, and negative emotional word types, while males demonstrated better recall of drug-related words. This poses the question, “do males have an attentional bias toward other stimuli than just drug-related words?”

The location where the subjects were interviewed also produced interesting results. Overall, participants off campus recalled more words than people on campus for all word types. These results could be due to a variety of reasons, which could be tested in subsequent recall task studies. However, variability of location is not a very accurate predictor of recall ability. You do not have to be a student to be on campus, and you could be a student interviewed off campus. A change in setting remains a reliable way to examine differences in behavior and cognitive ability why? How? If it is not an accurate predictor of recall ability…as you said.

Words that subjects reported from the flyer that did not exist were deemed as

“false alarms.” It is worth investigating noting that 10.59% of these falsely recalled words were drug related. Subsequent research needs to further examine this occurrence, which undoubtedly has to deal with our brain processes, memory, and storage of novel stimuli. Of course it is due to “brain processes”, but why did they recall false drug words? There was no memory from the flyer, what caused their recall?

Placement of words on our flyer may have affected word recall. For example,

“pimple,” the overall highest recalled word was located at the top and center position of Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 10 our flyer. Perhaps if a different word was placed in that same position, would it also be superiorly recalled SS? Analysis of other crucially placed words such as “klutz” and

“friend” were also recalled more frequently. By not preconceiving this occurrence, we refrained from the statistical analysis of this variable due to the lack of a control flyer. It still can be said the appearance and the manner in which the words are placed, will have a significant effect on subjects’ recall.

In all it seems that there is a cognitive bias towards drug-related words in the chosen field setting. Therefore, our results could be generalized to other drug-related stimuli, not just words, for example, visual or olfactory stimuli how can you make that claim? You may want to suggest it instead. These related studies can further investigate motivational factors and cognitive biases to produce more formal and accurate statements of causality and significance. Subsequent research needs to address the questions posed in this discussion, and accompany it with more rigid statistical analysis.

88% Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 11

References

Field, Matt; Mogg, Karin; Bradley, Brendan. (2004). Cognitive Bias and Drug

Craving in Recreational Cannabis Users. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 74, 105-111.

Gayford, M., et al. Superiority of Sex Word Recall in an Incidental Learning

Hedreen, Susan, et al. (2003). Sex Words Produce Better Recall in a Modified

Paired Word Associates Task.

Kenemans, J. L. (2000). The Psychology of Attention. Journal of

Psychophysiology, 14, 48-50.

Slaybaugh, Glenn; Sanford, James; Brown, Sam; Thompson, Charles; Shiffrin,

Richard. (1971) Retrieval failure or Selective Attention? Science, 173, 1040-1041.

Toy, Crawford. (1899). Taboo and Morality. Journal of the American Oriental

Society, 20, 151-156. Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 12

Appendix 1

Addiction Pimple Microphone

Birthday Camera Shape

Dictionary Klutz Drugs

Canteen WANT TO Hypocrisy Anxiety Love

Elation MAKE Betrayal

Sober Hug SOME Dishes Laundry

Intoxicated $$$ Flowers

Gossip Friend Toke

Syringe Crayon Condensation

Dream Lonely Alarm Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 13

Appendix 2

ANOVAANOVA Table for for Word w ord type Type Row exclusion: fourtw entydatat MASTER.svd DF Sum of Squares Mean Square F-Value P-Value Lambda Pow er Subject 399 96722.387 242.412 Category for w ord type 3 7543.395 2514.465 20.090 <.0001 60.269 1.000 Category for w ord type * Subject 1197 149818.337 125.162

Means Table for w ord type PercentEffect: Category Recall for Per w ord Word type Type Row exclusion: fourtw entydatat MASTER.svd Count Mean Std. Dev. Std. Err. percent neutral 400 5.404 7.967 .398 percent pos 400 9.562 13.583 .679 percent neg 400 8.643 11.715 .586 percent drug 400 11.395 15.254 .763

Interaction Bar Plot for w ord type Effect:Overall Category Mean for wPercent ord type Recall ErrorBetween Bars: ± 1 WordStandard Types Deviation(s) Row exclusion: fourtw entydatat MASTER.svd 30

20 n a

Mean e M

l 15 l

Percent e C of Recall 10

0 l g s g a r u o e t r p n u

e t n n n n

e e t e c c n r r c r e e e e c p p r p e p Cell Word Type

Figure A. Analysis of recall of each word type category integrating gender and location. Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 14

ANOVAANOVA Table forbetween w ord type Word Type and Location Row exclusion: fourtw entydatat MASTER.svd DF Sum of Squares Mean Square F-Value P-Value Lambda Pow er campus 1 5406.242 5406.242 23.719 <.0001 23.719 1.000 Subject(Group) 396 90260.044 227.929 Category for w ord type 3 6738.193 2246.064 18.068 <.0001 54.203 1.000 Category for w ord type * campus 3 81.758 27.253 .219 .8831 .658 .091 Category for w ord type * Subject(Group) 1188 147684.575 124.314

PercentMeans Table Recall for w ord Between type Location andEffect: Word Category Type for w ord type * cam pus Row exclusion: fourtw entydatat MASTER.svd Count Mean Std. Dev. Std. Err. yes, percent neutral 260 4.026 6.176 .383 yes, percent pos 260 7.927 12.001 .744 yes, percent neg 260 7.543 10.864 .674 yes, percent drug 260 9.980 14.274 .885 no, percent neutral 138 8.079 10.075 .858 no, percent pos 138 12.179 15.396 1.311 no, percent neg 138 10.599 12.864 1.095 no, percent drug 138 14.106 16.736 1.425

InteractionMean Percent Bar Plot for Recall w ord type Between Effect: Category for w ord type * cam pus RowLocation exclusion: Within fourtw entydatat Word MASTER.svdType 16

n 10 a Mean e yes M

l 8 l no Percent e C of Recall 6 4

0 l s g g a r o e u t r p n

u d t t

e t n n n n e e t e c c n r r c r e e e e c p p r p e p WordCell Type

Figure B. Analysis of recall between word type and location. Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 15

CellMean Bar Chartpercent of Drug Recall SplitBetween By: gender, Gender cam pusand Location Row exclusion: fourtw e ntydatat M ASTER.svd 16

12 Mean male, yes

n 10 a

Percent e male, no M

l 8 l female, yes e C 6 female, no

0 Drugpercent Recall drug

Figure C. Analysis of drug recall between gender and location. Cognitive Bias: Drug Words 16

ANOVA Table Between for w ord type Word Type and Gender Row exclusion: fourtw entydatat MASTER.svd DF Sum of Squares Mean Square F-Value P-Value Lambda Pow er gender 1 517.738 517.738 2.142 .1441 2.142 .292 Subject(Group) 398 96204.648 241.720 Category for w ord type 3 7697.950 2565.983 20.648 <.0001 61.944 1.000 Category for w ord type * gender 3 1435.726 478.575 3.851 .0093 11.553 .830 Category for w ord type * Subject(Group) 1194 148382.611 124.274

MeansPercent Table Recall for w ord Between type Gender Effect:and CategoryWord Type for w ord type * gender Row exclusion: fourtw entydatat MASTER.svd Count Mean Std. Dev. Std. Err. male, percent neutral 189 4.660 6.980 .508 male, percent pos 189 8.009 12.917 .940 male, percent neg 189 7.476 11.434 .832 male, percent drug 189 12.455 15.759 1.146 female, percent neutral 211 6.071 8.719 .600 female, percent pos 211 10.954 14.037 .966 female, percent neg 211 9.688 11.892 .819 female, percent drug 211 10.445 14.760 1.016

InteractionMean Percent Bar Plot for Recall w ord type Between Effect: Category for w ord type * gender RowGender exclusion: Within fourtw Word entydatat Type MASTER.svd 14

12 Mean 10 n a

Percent e 8 male M

l l female e 6 C

0 l s g g a r o e u t r p n

u d t t

e t n n n n e e t e c c n r r c r e e e e c p p r p e p WordCell Type

Figure D. Analysis of recall between word type and gender.