Experimental Research Requires Valid and Sensitive Measures of Alcohol Intake, and This is a Step in the Right Direction: Commentary on Leeman and Colleagues (2018).
The paper by Leeman and colleagues (2018) makes an important contribution to the broader literature on cognitive bias modification (CBM) for alcohol use disorders. In a balanced discussion, the authors speculate on possible explanations for their null findings, including failure of CBM to change cognitive biases, participant characteristics, and the suitability and sensitivity of the alcohol self-administration paradigm that was the primary outcome measure. The former explanations have been the subject of recent discussion, often heated (see Cristea, Kok, & Cuijpers, 2015, 2017, 2018; Grafton et al., 2017; Wiers, Boffo, & Field, 2018a, 2018b), and we will not revisit those issues here. This commentary is focussed on the alcohol self-administration task, which raises issues that have broader implications for researchers who measure alcohol consumption in controlled settings. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.