Maylor, Elizabeth A., Rabbitt, Patrick, Sahgal, Arjun and Wright, C. (1987) Effects of alcohol on speed and accuracy in choice reaction time and visual search. Acta psychologica, Vol.65 (No.2). pp. 147-63. ISSN 0001-6918

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Thirty-six subjects were each tested in three sessions on separate days, in which they were given 0, 0.33 or 1.0 ml alcohol per kg body weight (the order of administration being counterbalanced across subjects). Performance on two tasks requiring both speed and accuracy was studied in all three sessions. The first was a four-choice serial reaction time task in which the subject had to press one of four keys in response to four stimuli (A, B, C and D) presented in a random order. The second was a visual search task requiring the cancellation of two targets (the digits ‘0’ and ‘1’) from a random sequence of letters. Compared to no alcohol, the small dose did not affect speed but improved accuracy in both tasks, while the large dose impaired speed in the first task and accuracy in the second. The results therefore demonstrate that the effects of alcohol on performance are dependent upon both the quantity ingested and the particular task required.

[error in script] [error in script]

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Alcohol -- Physiological effect, Visual perception, Reaction time -- Effect of drugs on , Cognition -- Testing, Human information processing -- Effect of drugs on
Journal or Publication Title:	Acta psychologica
Publisher:	Elsevier BV
ISSN:	0001-6918
Date:	July 1987
Volume:	Vol.65
Number:	No.2
Page Range:	pp. 147-63
Identification Number:	10.1016/0001-6918(87)90024-2
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Funder:	Medical Research Council (Great Britain) (MRC)
Grant number:	G8221479N (MRC)
References:	Attneave, F., 1959. Applications of information theory to psychology: a summary of basic concepts, methods, and results. , Henry Holt and Co., Inc., New York. Birnbaum, I.M. and Parker, E.S., 1977. Acute effects of alcohol on storage and retrieval. In: Birnbaum, I.M. and Parker, E.S., Editors, 1977. Alcohol and human memory, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. Broadbent, D.E., 1958. Perception and communication. , Pergamon Press, London. Broadbent, D.E., 1971. Decision and stress. , Academic Press, London. Drew, G.C., Colquhoun, W.P. and Long, H.A., 1959. Effect of small doses of alcohol on a skill resembling driving. In: MRC Memorandum Number 38, HMSO, London. Hick, W.E., 1952. On the rate of gain of information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 4, pp. 11–26. Hockey, R., MacLean, A. and Hamilton, P., 1981. State changes and the temporal patterning of component resources. In: Long, J. and Baddeley, A., Editors, 1981. Attention and performance IX, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. Jennings, J.R., Wood, C.C. and Lawrence, B.E., 1976. Effects of graded doses of alcohol on speed-accuracy trade-off in choice reaction time. Perception & Psychophysics 19, pp. 85–91. Leonard, J.A., 1959. Tactual choice reactions: I. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 11, pp. 76–83. Maylor, E.A. and Rabbitt, P.M.A., 1987. Effects of alcohol and practice on choice reaction time. Perception & Psychophysics (in press). . Maylor, E.A., Rabbitt, P.M.A. and Kingstone, A., 1987. Effects of alcohol on word categorisation and recognition memory. British Journal of Psychology (in press). . Neisser, U., 1963. Decision time without reaction time: experiments in visual scanning. American Journal of Psychology 76, pp. 376–385. Newman, H.W. and Fletcher, E., 1940. The effect of alcohol on driving skill. Journal of the American Medical Association 115, p. 1600. Rabbitt, P.M.A., 1966. Error correction-time without external error-signals. Nature 197, pp. 1029–1030 (London) . Rabbitt, P.M.A., 1967. Time to detect errors as a function of factors affecting choice response time. Acta Psychologica 27, pp. 131–142. Rabbitt, P.M.A., 1968. Three kinds of error-signalling responses in a serial choice task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 20, pp. 179–188. Rabbitt, P.M.A., 1979. Current paradigms and models in human information processing. In: Hamilton, V.H. and Warburton, D.M., Editors, 1979. Human stress and cognition: an information processing approach, Wiley, New York. Rabbitt, P.M.A. and Abson, V., 1983. Sustained performance and visual search as a function of age and IQ test score. . Rabbitt, P.M.A., Cumming, G. and Vyas, S., 1978. Some errors of perceptual analysis in visual search can be detected and corrected. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 30, pp. 319–332. Shillito, M.L., King, L.E. and Cameron, C., 1974. Effects of alcohol on choice reaction time. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 35, pp. 1023–1034. Wilkinson, R.T. and Colquhoun, W.P., 1968. Interaction of alcohol with incentive and with sleep deprivation. Journal of Experimental Psychology 76, pp. 623–629.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/35791

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item