Visual Perception and Alcohol Consumption (2009)

Undergraduate: Laura Andrews

Faculty Advisor: Charlotte Boettiger
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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There is evidence that individuals who are dependent on alcohol or who engage in heavy drinking, exhibit reactivity towards alcohol-related stimuli. When an addict views an addiction-related stimulus, the magnocellular pathway sends the low spatial frequency information in the image quickly from earlier visual areas directly to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC; Kveraga, Boshyan, & Bar, 2007). This path is known as the top-down process of object recognition. The bottom-up process of object recognition involves transmitting high spatial frequency information via the parvocellular pathway. It is proposed that the OFC may bias visual attention toward stimuli related to drugs of abuse via object recognition pathway(s). This attentional bias may stem from repeated rewarding experiences with drugs. The current study examined whether the top-down process or bottom-up process of object recognition, or both, seem to play a role for biased processing for alcohol-related objects in heavy social drinkers. The data do not support that top-down signals from the OFC bias recognition of alcohol-related stimuli in heavy drinkers. Instead, we found evidence for enhanced processing of high-pass filtered alcohol stimuli, processed by the parvocellular pathway. Moreover, our data suggest that heavy social drinkers may be more susceptible to visual priming for alcohol-related stimuli.