Pretask smoking and smoking during a task: Effects on cognitive performance, puffing behavior, physiological and subjective parameters

✍ Scribed by M. Hasenfratz; K. Bättig

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 642 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6222
• DOI: 10.1002/hup.470090303

✦ Synopsis

Twenty female regular smokers participated in four experimental sessions, each of which involved performing a rapid information processing task (RIP) twice. According to a 2 X 2 cross-over design the subjects were allowed to either real or sham smoke a single habitual cigarette between the two RIP trials and to real or sham smoke ad libitum during the second RIP trial. RIP performance was significantly better when the smokers were allowed to smoke during the task. On the other hand, the improvement after pretask smoking failed to reach significance. The puffing intervals were similar for real and sham smoking during rest but significantly longer with real than with sham smoking during the task. The increases in electrocortical and cardiovascular arousal as well as the subjective effects were similar for pretask and task smoking. After pretask smoking these effects vanished for the subsequent task period, whereas they were maintained but not further increased when pretask smoking was followed by task smoking. It was concluded that mental performance was increased but overarousal was avoided by accurate nicotine titration during the RIP task.

KEY WORDS-smoking during task, puffing behaviour, mental performance, cardiovascular, EEG, rapid information processing.