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Objectives: The psychology of moral decision-making classically contrasts utilitarianism (based on consequences) and deontology (based on moral norms). Previous studies capitalizing on this dichotomy have suggested the presence of a utilitarian bias among patients with severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD). We aimed to further disentangle the processes involved in such bias through a more validated approach, the CNI model of moral decision-making. This model allows to go further than the classical approach by distinguishing sensitivity to consequences (C), to moral norms (N), and general preference for inaction over action (I) in response to moral dilemmas., Methods: Thirty-four recently detoxified patients with SAUD and 34 matched control participants completed a battery of 48 dilemmas derived from the CNI model, as well as social cognition tasks., Results: In contrast with the utilitarian bias suggested in previous studies based on the classical approach, patients with SAUD did not show an increased sensitivity to consequences in comparison with control participants. However, they showed a reduced sensitivity to moral norms, as well as a greater action tendency. These biases were not related to social cognition deficits., Conclusions: Patients with SAUD are not more utilitarian than healthy controls, this previously reported bias being artificially generated by the methodological limits of the classical approach. Instead, they present a reduced sensitivity to moral norms and an action bias, which might impact their interpersonal relations and contribute to the social isolation frequently reported in this population, thus identifying moral decision-making as a new therapeutic lever in SAUD., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

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., (© 2024 Research Society on Alcohol.)

Introduction: Major Depression Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) often co-occur, but the neurocognitive mechanisms of this co-occurrence remain unknown. Prominent views have pointed to attentional processes as potent mechanisms at play in MDD and GAD, respectively. Yet uncertainty remains regarding the very nature of attentional impairments in patients with co-occurring MDD and GAD., Methods: Inspired by contemporary models of attentional networks, we compared the three main attentional networks, namely the orienting, alerting, and executive networks of the Attention Network Task's model, in four groups of patients with, respectively, co-occurring DSM-5 MDD and GAD (n = 30), DSM-5 MDD only (n = 30), DSM-5 GAD only (n = 30), or free from any DSM-5 diagnosis (n = 30). To capture the multivariate nature of our data, we examined between-group differences in the attentional networks through a multivariate analysis of variance., Results: Patients with co-occurring MDD and GAD exhibited more severe impairments in the executive control network than those with only one of the disorders. Although patients with MDD or GAD solely did not differ in terms of attentional impairments, both groups showed significantly more impairments in the executive control network than those free from any DSM-5 diagnosis (all Bonferonni-corrected post-hoc ps < 0.05)., Conclusions: Our findings align with a longstanding staging approach to comorbidity whereby, via synergistic effects, co-occurring disorders produce more damages than the sum of each disorder. Here, for the first time, we extended this approach to the executive network of attention in the context of the co-occurrence between MDD and GAD., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Dominant theoretical models consider that attentional biases (AB) towards alcohol-related stimuli play a key role in the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorder (AUD). Their assessment has however showed high inconsistencies and has been mostly based on unreliable behavioral measures. This study evaluated the presence and extent of alcohol-related AB in recently detoxified inpatients with severe AUD by combining the visual probe task (VPT) paradigm with eye-tracking measures, known to improve the VPT reliability in subclinical populations., Methods: We recruited 24 patients and 27 matched healthy controls. They performed the VPT (measuring reaction time when processing visual targets preceded by alcoholic and matched non-alcoholic pictures) combined with eye-tracking measures (dwell time, first fixation direction/duration, second fixation direction) during two sessions. Estimates of internal consistency, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability were measured., Results: Patients showed shorter dwell time for alcohol cues (p = .004, d=.853) and reduced number of fixations towards alcohol after a first fixation on non-alcohol cues (p = .012, d=.758) compared to controls. These findings suggest the presence of alcohol-related avoidance AB in detoxified patients with severe AUD. The VPT achieved excellent reliability for these eye-tracking measures. Reaction times and first fixation measures did not indicate any AB pattern and showed poor reliability., Conclusions: The VPT, when combined with dwell time and second fixation direction, constitutes a reliable method for assessing AB in detoxified patients. It showed the presence of an alcohol-related avoidance bias in this clinical population, in contradiction with the approach bias predicted by theoretical models., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Disturbed processing of emotional faces and voices is typically observed in schizophrenia. This deficit leads to impaired social cognition and interactions. In this study, we investigated whether impaired processing of emotions also affects musical stimuli, which are widely present in daily life and known for their emotional impact. Thirty schizophrenic patients and 30 matched healthy controls evaluated the emotional content of musical, vocal and facial stimuli. Schizophrenic patients are less accurate than healthy controls in recognizing emotion in music, voices and faces. Our results confirm impaired recognition of emotion in voice and face stimuli in schizophrenic patients and extend this observation to the recognition of emotion in musical stimuli., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)