Volume 59, Issue 2 e13967
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the P3 event-related potential (ERP) elicited by alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage pictures

Roberto U. Cofresí

Corresponding Author

Roberto U. Cofresí

Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA

Correspondence

Roberto U. Cofresí, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Contribution: Formal analysis, ​Investigation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing

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Thomas M. Piasecki

Thomas M. Piasecki

Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA

Contribution: Funding acquisition, Resources, Supervision, Writing - review & editing

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Greg Hajcak

Greg Hajcak

Departments of Psychology and Biomedical Sciences, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Contribution: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing

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Bruce D. Bartholow

Bruce D. Bartholow

Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA

Contribution: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing - review & editing

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First published: 15 November 2021
Citations: 7

Funding information

Funding for the project and manuscript preparation was provided by NIH grant R01 AA025451 (BDB, TMP). At various stages of his involvement, RUC was supported by the local T32 (AA013526), an NIH Diversity Supplement to the parent R01 (AA025451-04S1), and the University of Missouri Department of Psychological Sciences Mission Enhancement Post-Doctoral Fellowship Fund. Funding agencies had no role in the research or manuscript preparation.

Abstract

Addiction researchers are interested in the ability of neural signals, like the P3 component of the ERP, to index individual differences in liability factors like motivational reactivity to alcohol/drug cues. The reliability of these measures directly impacts their ability to index individual differences, yet little attention has been paid to their psychometric properties. The present study fills this gap by examining within-session internal consistency reliability (ICR) and between-session test–retest reliability (TRR) of the P3 amplitude elicited by images of alcoholic beverages (Alcohol Cue P3) and non-alcoholic drinks (NADrink Cue P3) as well as the difference between them, which isolates alcohol cue-specific reactivity in the P3 (ACR-P3). Analyses drew on data from a large sample of alcohol-experienced emerging adults (session 1 N = 211, 55% female, aged 18–20 yr; session 2 N = 98, 66% female, aged 19–21 yr). Evaluated against domain-general thresholds, ICR was excellent (M ± SD; r= 0.902 ± 0.030) and TRR was fair (r = 0.706 ± 0.020) for Alcohol Cue P3 and NADrink Cue P3, whereas for ACR-P3, ICR and TRR were poor (r = 0.370 ± 0.071; r = 0.201 ± 0.042). These findings indicate that individual differences in the P3 elicited by cues for ingested liquid rewards are highly reliable and substantially stable over 8–10 months. Individual differences in alcohol cue-specific P3 reactivity were less reliable and less stable. The conditions under which alcohol/drug cue-specific reactivity in neural signals is adequately reliable and stable remain to be discovered.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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