May I have your attention, please? Methodological and analytical flexibility in the addiction stroop

Jones, Andrew, Worrall, Semra ORCID: 0000-0002-6587-9306, Rudin, Lara, Duckworth, Jay J ORCID: 0000-0002-9475-5839 and Christiansen, Paul (2021) May I have your attention, please? Methodological and analytical flexibility in the addiction stroop. Addiction Research & Theory, 29 (5). pp. 1-14.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.1876847

Abstract

Background: Theoretical models of addiction predict that an attentional bias toward substance-related cues plays a role in development and maintenance of addictive behaviors, although empirical data testing these predictions are somewhat equivocal. This may in part be a consequence of substantial variability in methods used to operationalize attentional bias. Our aim was to examine the variability in key design and analysis decisions of the addiction Stroop. Method: Using a pre-registered design, we identified 95 studies utilizing an addiction Stroop (46 alcohol, 25 smoking, 24 drug-related). We extracted key information about the design of the Stroop tasks, including; administration (paper-and-pencil vs. computerized), response (key-press vs. voice), design (block vs. mixed). For analysis decisions we extracted information on upper- and lower-bound reaction time cutoffs, removal of data based on standard error cutoffs, removal of participants based on overall performance, type of outcome used, and removal of errors. Results: Based on variability from previous research there are at least 1,451,520 different possible designs of the computerized Alcohol Stroop, 77,760 designs of the computerized Smoking Stroop and 112,640 for the Drug Stroop. Many key design decisions were unreported. Similarly, variability in analyses decisions would allow for 9,000 different methods for analyzing the Alcohol Stroop, 5,376 for the Smoking Stroop and 768 for the Drug Stroop. P-curves suggest data provided evidential value and exploratory meta-regressions suggest that the addiction Stroop effect was not associated with design and analysis decisions. Conclusions: The addiction Stroop effect is seemingly robust, however the adoption of consistent reporting guidelines is necessary to aid reliability and reproducibility.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Addiction, attentional bias, alcohol, smoking, Stroop, methods, degrees of freedom
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Population Health
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	18 Mar 2021 16:14
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 22:55
DOI:	10.1080/16066359.2021.1876847
Open Access URL:	http://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.1876847
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3117674