Arthur Pabst, Arnaud d'Argembeau, Xavier de Longueville, Philippe de Timary, Pierre Maurage
{"title":"Social episodic memory in severe alcohol use disorder: Positive encoding bias and negative bias in accessibility of interpersonal information","authors":"Arthur Pabst, Arnaud d'Argembeau, Xavier de Longueville, Philippe de Timary, Pierre Maurage","doi":"10.1111/acer.15344","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Background</h3>\n \n <p>Alterations in higher-order social cognition are well documented in individuals with severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD). However, the basic mechanisms underpinning them are not well understood. This knowledge gap hampers the development of targeted therapeutic interventions. Here, we investigated whether individuals with SAUD show abnormalities in social episodic memory processes, which may represent relevant candidate mechanisms for alterations in social cognition.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Methods</h3>\n \n <p>Recently detoxified patients with SAUD and matched healthy controls (HCs) completed two experimental tasks. We first used a Social Recognition Task in 40 SAUD patients and 40 HCs to measure the participants' ability to implicitly memorize the facial identity and emotion of novel interpersonal cues (i.e., dynamic facial expressions of anger and happiness). We then used a Social Memory Accessibility Task in 29 SAUD patients and 30 HCs) to measure participants' access to and fluency for already existing social memories by asking them to retrieve as many specific positive and negative interpersonal events as possible within equal time limits.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Results</h3>\n \n <p>In the Social Recognition Task, we found that, compared to HCs, patients with SAUD had a globally lower recognition performance for the facial identities of novel social stimuli, but a preserved bias toward positive information. Conversely, in the social memory accessibility task, patients showed greater access to and fluency for negative interpersonal memories than controls (no group differences were observed for positive ones), resulting in a negative accessibility bias.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Conclusions</h3>\n \n <p>This exploration of episodic social memory in individuals with SAUD showed (1) a preserved bias for the encoding of positive versus negative novel social information, and (2) greater access to negative than positive interpersonal memories. These results enhance our understanding of socio-affective processing in individuals with SAUD and identify social memory alterations that may contribute to social cognition and interpersonal difficulties.</p>\n </section>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":72145,"journal":{"name":"Alcohol (Hanover, York County, Pa.)","volume":"48 7","pages":"1336-1346"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Alcohol (Hanover, York County, Pa.)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acer.15344","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"SUBSTANCE ABUSE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background
Alterations in higher-order social cognition are well documented in individuals with severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD). However, the basic mechanisms underpinning them are not well understood. This knowledge gap hampers the development of targeted therapeutic interventions. Here, we investigated whether individuals with SAUD show abnormalities in social episodic memory processes, which may represent relevant candidate mechanisms for alterations in social cognition.
Methods
Recently detoxified patients with SAUD and matched healthy controls (HCs) completed two experimental tasks. We first used a Social Recognition Task in 40 SAUD patients and 40 HCs to measure the participants' ability to implicitly memorize the facial identity and emotion of novel interpersonal cues (i.e., dynamic facial expressions of anger and happiness). We then used a Social Memory Accessibility Task in 29 SAUD patients and 30 HCs) to measure participants' access to and fluency for already existing social memories by asking them to retrieve as many specific positive and negative interpersonal events as possible within equal time limits.
Results
In the Social Recognition Task, we found that, compared to HCs, patients with SAUD had a globally lower recognition performance for the facial identities of novel social stimuli, but a preserved bias toward positive information. Conversely, in the social memory accessibility task, patients showed greater access to and fluency for negative interpersonal memories than controls (no group differences were observed for positive ones), resulting in a negative accessibility bias.
Conclusions
This exploration of episodic social memory in individuals with SAUD showed (1) a preserved bias for the encoding of positive versus negative novel social information, and (2) greater access to negative than positive interpersonal memories. These results enhance our understanding of socio-affective processing in individuals with SAUD and identify social memory alterations that may contribute to social cognition and interpersonal difficulties.
背景:严重酒精使用障碍(SAUD)患者的高阶社会认知发生了改变,这一点已得到充分证实。然而,人们对其基本机制还不甚了解。这一知识空白阻碍了有针对性的治疗干预措施的开发。在此,我们研究了 SAUD 患者是否在社会记忆过程中表现出异常,这可能代表了社会认知改变的相关候选机制:最近戒毒的 SAUD 患者和匹配的健康对照组(HCs)完成了两项实验任务。我们首先在40名SAUD患者和40名健康对照者中使用社交识别任务来测量参与者内隐记忆新颖人际线索(即愤怒和快乐的动态面部表情)的面部身份和情绪的能力。然后,我们在29名SAUD患者和30名HC患者中使用了社交记忆可及性任务(Social Memory Accessibility Task)来测量参与者对已有社交记忆的可及性和流畅性,要求他们在相同的时间限制内尽可能多地检索特定的积极和消极人际事件:在社会识别任务中,我们发现与普通人相比,SAUD 患者对新社会刺激物面部特征的识别能力普遍较低,但对正面信息的偏好却保持不变。相反,在社会记忆可及性任务中,与对照组相比,患者对负面人际记忆的可及性和流畅性更高(对正面记忆则没有观察到群体差异),从而导致了负面可及性偏差:对 SAUD 患者外显社会记忆的研究表明:(1) 患者对积极与消极新社会信息的编码偏差保持不变;(2) 患者获得消极人际记忆的机会多于获得积极人际记忆的机会。这些结果加深了我们对 SAUD 患者社会情感处理过程的理解,并确定了可能导致社会认知和人际交往困难的社会记忆改变。