Effects of Task Complexity and Practice on Performance during Acute Alcohol Intoxication

Abstract

A battery of psychological tests was administered to 26 medical smdents in a counterbalanced cross-over design to determine the effects of an acute dose of alcohol on perceptual, perceptual-motor and cognitive capacities. The tests included: temporal acuity (critical flicker fusion threshold), perceptual speed and attention (Stroop), perceptual-motor coordination (Purdue Pegboard) , perceptual-motor speed (simple and choice reaction time), immediate memory (WAIS Digit Span), short-term memory (dichotic stimulation), and intellectual and conceptual capacity (Shipley Institute of Living Scale). Three general conclusions were drawn: ( 1 ) alcohol exerted a deteriorating effect on performance on all tasks except the Stroop, ( 2 ) retesting 48 hr. later showed that practice or familiarity with the task mitigated the effects of the alcohol, and ( 3 ) contrary to the hypothesis advanced by Jellineck and McFarland (1940), no systematic relationship was observed bemeen task complexity and degree of impairment from the alcohol.Although there is a vast literature pertaining to the consequences of acute alcohol ingestion, there is a surprising dearth of agreement regarding its effects on most types of psychological processes and capacities. ~u c h o f the reported discrepancy can undoubtedly be attributed to such methodological variables as practice, parameters of the task, blood alcohol level and level of pre-experimental skill (Carpenter, 1962 ) .The present investigation was directed at determining whether simple and complex functions are differentially affected by a moderate dose of alcohol. A second aim was to evaluate the effects, if any, prior practice on a task has on performance when subsequently tested during acute alcohol intoxication. Jellineck and McFarland (1940) have hypothesized that "simple functions are less affected by alcohol than complex ones" (p. 3 6 5 ) , but the evidence to date is inconclusive. Similarly, the authors (Jellineck & McFarland, 1940) have postulated that "within a task of given complexity, familiarity with the task tends to lower the effect of alcohol" (p. 348).This report summarizes our findings with respect to whether: (1) a moderate quantity of alcohol is deleterious to psychological test performance, ( 2 ) there is a differential susceptibility of complex functions to disruption as postulated by Jellineck and McFarland (1940), and ( 3 ) the role of practice in mitigating the adverse effects of alcohol can be delineated.Twenty-six experimentally naive male medical students, having a mean age of 23 yr., served as Ss. Experimental DesignSs were randomly assigned to one of two groups in a counterbalanced cross-over design. The first group (A-P) was administered alcohol on the first day and a placebo on the second day. The remaining 13 Ss (P-A) received the reverse order of treatments. An interval of 48 hr. separated the first and second test sessions. Alcohol Admini~trationSs were instructed to fast for 4 hr. prior to reporting for the experiment. The dose of alcohol consisted of 1.10 ml...

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