Influencia del contenido emocional en la percepción de estímulos visuales en sujetos drogodependientes

Abstract

Introduction

Several studies have shown the influence of emotional states on the cognitive functions such as attention, memory, perception, etc. Also, research related to emotional response in drug abuse patients has been increased.

Objective

The main objective of this research was, by one hand, to study if the visual perception is modulated by the emotional significance of the stimuli and, by the other hand, to verify whether this effect is related to the clinical effects (stimulant vs sedative) of the drug of choice.

Material and methods

Thirty one drug abuse patients (16 cocaine and 15 alcoholic patients) who were in a community rehabilitation setting were assessed using 30 pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The IAPS pictures have been classified in five conditions according with valence and arousal values.

Results

Results have shown that perceptual accuracy is related to the emotional valence of the stimuli. Also, cocaine patients have a better perceptual accuracy than alcoholic patients.

Conclusions

These results support, first, that emotion can modulate the perception, in terms of relevance to the subject addict, the stimulus presented and that these perceptual differences are related to the substance of preferred consumption