Cigarette craving hurts cognition

PITTSBURGH, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Craving a cigarette while performing a cognitive task increases the chances of a person's mind wandering, University of Pittsburgh researchers suggest.

The study, scheduled to be published in the January issue of Psychological Science, finds evidence that craving a cigarette disrupts one's meta-awareness -- the ability periodically to appraise one's own thoughts.

Psychology Professor Michael Sayette and colleagues recruited 44 male and female heavy smokers to take part in the study. All smoked nearly one pack a day and refrained from smoking for at least six hours before arriving at the study lab.

Participants were assigned to a low-crave group, who were permitted to smoke throughout the study. The rest, assigned to the crave-condition group had to abstain.

Participants were asked to read as many as 34 pages of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" from a computer screen. If they caught themselves zoning out, they pressed a key labeled ZO. After 30 minutes, a reading comprehension test was administered.

The study finds both groups were prompted a similar number of times, with the people craving cigarettes acknowledging more mind-wandering episodes -- three times as many as those in the low-crave group -- but passing on opportunities to catch themselves zoning out, the study says.