Effects of Ethanol on Control of Attention

✍ Scribed by D. NEWMAN; D. J. SPEAKE; P. J. ARMSTRONG; B. TIPLADY

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 134 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6222
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1077(199705/06)12:3<235::aid-hup859>3.0.co;2-l

✦ Synopsis

In order to investigate the eect of ethanol on visual attention, 18 subjects aged 20±50 years took part in a threeperiod crossover study in which they received placebo (PL) and two doses of ethanol in random order. The higher dose (E2: 0 . 88 g/kg, maximum 66 g for males, 55 g for females) was calculated to produce blood ethanol concentrations of 60±80 mg/100 ml. The lower dose (E1) was 75 per cent of E2. Subjects showed highly signi®cant subjective drunkenness at both doses ( p `0Á01) and on the higher dose were slowed by 6±11 per cent on most speeded measures, in agreement with previous results. In a Four-Choice Reaction-Time Task, subjects responded for part of the time to a ®xed, repetitive sequence, and at other times to a random sequence of stimuli. At the transition from repetitive to random sequences, subjects on ethanol showed a disproportionate slowing (60 per cent on the higher dose). This slowing may be of particular relevance to driving, as the time taken to engage control processing after a period of relatively automatic activity may be important in dealing with unexpected events on the road.