The auditory stimulus facilitates memory guidance in distractor suppression in males with substance use disorder

Cai, Biye; Wang, Jinjin; Sang, Hanbin; Zhang, Zonghao; Wang, Aijun · 2024 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1417557

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Summary

This study investigates how auditory stimuli influence memory-guided distractor suppression in males with substance use disorder (SUD), addressing a gap in understanding their ability to resist proactive interference from working memory. While SUD is known to impair cognitive control and filtering of perceptual distractors, less is known about how these individuals manage interference from memory representations. The authors hypothesized that congruent auditory information during memory encoding could enhance cognitive control, thereby facilitating attentional suppression in SUD patients. The researchers employed a working memory/visual search dual-task paradigm with 50 male participants: 25 with SUD (recruited from a compulsory rehabilitation center, abstinent for at least 30 days) and 25 healthy controls. Participants memorized a written color word, either visually alone or accompanied by congruent auditory speech (audiovisual condition). During the retention interval, they performed a gap-location search task where one distractor sometimes matched the memorized color. Performance was measured via response times (RTs) and accuracy. Additionally, participants completed self-report measures for relapse tendency, self-control, and anxiety. Data analysis included repeated-measures ANOVAs on mean RTs and cumulative probability RT distributions to assess temporal dynamics. Results indicated that under the visual-only condition, only the control group exhibited a significant memory-guided distractor suppression effect (faster RTs when a distractor matched the memory item); the SUD group showed no such effect. However, under the audiovisual condition, both groups demonstrated significant suppression. The auditory stimulus enhanced the magnitude of the suppression effect in both groups, though the effect was smaller in the SUD group. Crucially, cumulative RT distribution analysis revealed that while the suppression effect appeared early in the control group, it emerged later in the SUD group (significant from the 5th percentile onward). No significant correlations were found between suppression effects and self-report measures of addiction traits. The findings suggest that while individuals with SUD have deficits in utilizing working memory to guide attention and suppress distractors under visual-only conditions, congruent auditory stimulation can restore this cognitive control mechanism. This audiovisual enhancement facilitates distractor suppression in SUD patients, albeit with delayed temporal dynamics compared to healthy controls. The study highlights the potential of multisensory integration to optimize perceptual decisions and cognitive control in SUD, offering insights for developing targeted interventions to prevent relapse by strengthening attentional guidance mechanisms.

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• auditory