Addictions: BBS Call for Commentators

Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article on: RESOLVING THE CONTRADICTIONS OF ADDICTION by Gene Heyman (Psychology, Harvard) This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: bbs(a)soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences Department of Psychology University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs.html http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS ftp://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pub/harnad/BBS gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection by anonymous ftp (or gopher or world-wide-web) according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. ____________________________________________________________________ RESOLVING THE CONTRADICTIONS OF ADDICTION Gene M. Heyman Department of Psychology Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 gmh(a)wjh12.harvard.edu KEYWORDS: Addiction, compulsive behavior, disease, incentive- sensitization, reinforcement, rational choice, matching law ABSTRACT: Research findings on addiction are contradictory. According to biographical records and widely used diagnostic manuals, addicts use drugs compulsively. These accounts are consistent with genetic research and laboratory experiments in which repeated administration of addictive drugs caused changes in neural substrates associated with reward. However, epidemiological and experimental data show that the consequences of drug consumption can significantly modify drug intake in addicts. The disease model can account for the compulsive features of addiction, but not occasions in which price and punishment reduced drug consumption in addicts. Conversely, learning models of addiction can account for the influence of price and punishment, but not compulsive drug taking. The occasion for this paper is that recent developments in behavioral choice theory resolve the apparent contradictions in the addiction literature. The basic argument includes the following four statements. First, repeated consumption of an addictive drug decreases its future value and the future value of competing activities. Second, the frequency of an activity is a function of its relative (not absolute) value. This implies that an activity that reduces the values of competing behaviors can increase in frequency even if its own value also declines. Third, a recent experiment (Heyman & Tanz, 1995) shows that the effective reinforcement contingencies are relative to a frame of reference, and this frame of reference can change so as to favor optimal or sub-optimal choice. Fourth, if the frame of reference is local, reinforcement contingencies will favor excessive drug use, but if the frame of reference is global, the reinforcement contingencies will favor controlled drug use. The transition from a global to local frame of reference explains relapse and other compulsive features of addiction. -------------------------------------------------------------- To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable by anonymous ftp from ftp.princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is bbs.heyman). Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. ------------------------------------------------------------- These files are also on the World Wide Web and the easiest way to retrieve them is with Netscape, Mosaic, gopher, archie, veronica, etc. Here are some of the URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs.html http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/bbs.html gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.heyman ftp://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.heyman To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either: ftp ftp.princeton.edu or ftp 128.112.128.1 When you are asked for your login, type: anonymous Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid: yourlogin(a)yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@") cd /pub/harnad/BBS To show the available files, type: ls Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example): get bbs.heyman When you have the file(s) you want, type: quit ---------- Where the above procedure is not available there are two fileservers: ftpmail(a)decwrl.dec.com and bitftp(a)pucc.bitnet that will do the transfer for you. To one or the other of them, send the following one line message: help for instructions (which will be similar to the above, but will be in the form of a series of lines in an email message that ftpmail or bitftp will then execute for you). -------------------------------------------------------------