Levels of cognitive understanding: Reflective and impulsive cognition in alcohol use and misuse

In this chapter we describe some of the methodological tools that are used to illustrate a bias in processing alcohol related stimuli. The main focus is on studies of attentional bias (addition Stroop and visual probe task), the dual task paradigm, measures from eye movement and the go/no-go task. We also describe dual-process models that emphasize the influence of impulsive and reflective processes in our understanding of alcohol use. In the cognitive literature neural network models have also been used to simulate the interaction between bottom-up and top-down processes. We therefore extend this discussion by exploring how a neural network model could incorporate the influence of alcohol stimuli.