Attention Bias of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems in Young Adults: A Pilot Study

Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) are becoming increasingly popular among young adults in the United States. The use of ENDS can cause a person to pay attention to different stimuli than a person who does not use ENDS. ENDS users have a greater susceptibility to attention bias (AB) to drug cues. An AB to drugs can foster dependence on products such as ENDS, cigarettes, and other drugs. Research has been done on emotional disorders and on cigarette users that shows an altered AB to ENDS may help for clinical interventions, but research has not been done on ENDS AB. The AB of ENDS users versus cigarette users were examined for using a dot-probe task. There were 72 subjects between the ages of 18 and 29 who participated in this study with 70 subjects’ scores used. Groups included ENDS users, cigarette users, and people who have not used nicotine in three consecutive months. By showing the participants an image of an ENDS and a neutral item for 500 milliseconds for several trials and asking them to identify the probe after the images, we can test for AB between ENDS and cigarette users. In the dot-probe task, ENDS users (M = 18.21, SD = 31.79) displayed a greater level of AB toward the ENDS cues than non-users did (M = 0.40, SD = 20.12, t[44] = 2.19, p = 0.03). In the eye-tracking task, ENDS users showed a longer eye gaze towards ENDS cues relative to nonusers (net dwell time % toward ENDS cues = 26.83 [SD = 10.34] for ENDS users vs. 19.06 [SD = 4.67] for nonuser, t[46] = 3.44, p = 0.001). The findings from this study may lead to research on attention bias in ENDS users resulting in a better way to care for those with nicotine addictions