The Approach and Avoidance Task (AAT) in Smoking Cessation

Summary

The approach and avoidance task (AAT) has evolved as a promising treatment add-on in the realm of psychology. Certain psychiatric diseases, such as behavioural addictions, social anxiety disorder, and arachnophobia, are characterized by a dysfunctional tendency to either approach or avoid disease-specific objects. This tendency can be measured by means of the approach and avoidance task. More precisely, by a diagnostic AAT, in which participants are instructed to react upon the format or the frame colour of a picture. For instance, pictures have to be pushed away if they are presented in landscape format and pulled towards oneself if they are presented in portrait format (or vice versa). Hence, the format (or the frame colour) becomes the task-relevant dimension, whereas the content of the picture becomes irrelevant for task completion. However, what generally becomes obvious in the psychiatric diseases mentioned above is that the task-irrelevant dimension (picture content) exerts an influence on reaction times. For instance, smokers are generally faster to respond to smoking-related pictures, when presented in a format requiring them to pull towards themselves, and slower to respond, if smoking pictures are shown in the format requiring them to push away a joystick (Wiers et al., 2013). This behavioural tendency has been termed an approach bias for cigarettes or smoking.

In order to counteract these dysfunctional approach or avoidance tendencies, an AAT-training has been developed. In this training participants/patients learn to either avoid or approach disease-specific objects. Smokers, for instance, learn to avoid smoking-related pictures by pushing or swiping the image away. It has been shown that these trainings can lower cigarette consumption among current smokers (Machulska, Zlomuzica, Rinck, Assian, \& Margraf, 2016). The aim of the current study is to test whether the avoidance gesture is as important as suggested by the AAT's name or whether inhibiting the urge to approach smoking-related content might be enough to bring about the effect. Furthermore, possible changes in general and domain-specific (i.e. smoking-related) inhibition capacity, that might mediate the effect, will be assessed. Another focus of study will be on functional as well as structural neuronal changes, emerging as a consequence of the AAT-training.

Conditions

• Smoking Cessation

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Inhibition

Participants receive an Ipad, on which the app is installed. They are instructed to train for a period of three weeks for at least 15 minutes a day.

BEHAVIORAL

Classical AAT

Participants receive an Ipad, on which the app is installed. They are instructed to train for a period of three weeks for at least 15 minutes a day.

BEHAVIORAL

Control

Participants receive an Ipad, on which the app is installed. They are instructed to train for a period of three weeks for at least 15 minutes a day.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Simone Kühn, Prof. Dr. · Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

55 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-12-01

Primary Completion

2020-09-01

Completion

2020-09-01

Countries

• Germany

Study Locations