Carryover effects to addiction-associated stimuli in a group of marijuana and cocaine users

Addiction has been characterized as an attentional bias towards drug-related cues. In two experiments we investigate the effects of non-words that have been associatively trained to addiction-related images in a group of marijuana and cocaine users. These associated non-words were presented along with unstudied non-words in a subsequent addiction Stroop task. Results indicate a slowdown in responding to the colour of non-words that were paired with cocaine-related images compared with non-cocaine related images. The slowdown was also characterized as a carryover effect, with the largest effect occurring on trials following the addiction-associated non-word. No effects were found for marijuana images associated with non-words.