The effects of alcohol alone or in combination with other drugs on information processing, task performance and subjective responses

Abstract

This paper reviews the effects of alcohol on human psychomotor performance and cognitive function. It concentrates particularly on effects on reaction time and on skills related to car driving. The effects of alcohol on performance are very variable at low doses (under 1 g per kg body weight). The variability is due to the different measures and methods employed by the researchers and to the large interindividual and interoccasional differences in the effects of alcohol. That is, alcohol affects different people in different ways and it affects the same person differently on separate occasions. Greater performance deficits are observed as the dose increases and as the tasks become more complex. Although results vary, both nicotine and caffeine appear to antagonize the detrimental effects of alcohol on performance. Many other drugs interact with alcohol, the most important of which are sedative agents that can combine synergistically with alcohol to produce profound psychomotor and cognitive impairment. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of a moderate dose of alcohol on simulated laparoscopic surgical performance

“…The observation of an impairment of simulated surgical performance 1-2 h following ingestion of a moderate dose of alcohol is consistent with the literature on the effects of alcohol on a wide variety of information-processing tasks [11]. The observed absence of both a hangover effect on performance when BAC had returned to near zero following a night's sleep and of an effect on estimated sleep duration during the night following alcohol ingestion is also consistent with previous reports [6].…”

The effect of alcohol, THC and their combination on perceived effects, willingness to drive and performance of driving and non-driving tasks

“…Alcohol alone, mostly dose dependent, impairs performance, particularly cognitive functioning such as information processing, memory, response time, divided attention and spatial perception (Finnigan & Hammersley, 1992;Gengo et al, 1990;Heishman et al, 1988Heishman et al, , 1997Kerr & Hindmarch, 1998). Impairments in driving related tasks have been noted for levels below 0.05% BAC (Moskowitz and Robinson, 1988;Moskowitz and Fiorentino, 2000;Howat et al, 1991) and statistically significant increases in crash risk have been obtained for levels as low as 0.04% (Compton et al, 2002).…”

Using Virtual Reality to Study Alcohol Intoxication Effects on the Neural Correlates of Simulated Driving

“…Alcohol is known to have vasoactive properties, confounding functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies relying upon phenomenological hemodynamic changes. Global changes (more specifically decreases) in fMRI signal changes are likely confounded by such (Manno, Kiplinger, Haine, Bennett, & Forney, 1970;Hansteen et al, 1976;Kvalseth 1977;Belgrave et al, 1979;Landauer & Howat 1983;Fagan, Tiplady, & Scott, 1987;Peterson, Rothfleisch, Zelazo, Pihl, 1990a) Simple perception (Mitchell 1985) (least affected) Hand & body steadiness, coordination a (Manno, Kiplinger, Scholz, & Forney, 1971;Hansteen et al, 1976;Belgrave et al, 1979;Tagawa et al, 2000) Increased choice reaction time a (Tagawa et al, 2000), b (Pickworth, Rohrer, & Fant, 1997), c (Perrine 1976), c (Sugarman, Cozad, & Zavala, 1973), c (Landauer & Howat 1983;Maylor & Rabbitt 1987), Not at lower doses, (Eadson & Vogel-Sprott, 2000) Visual search c (Moskowitz, Hulbert, & McGlothin, 1976) Divided visual attention/useful field of view (Linnoila 1974;Moskowitz, Burns, & Williams, 1985;Niaura et al, 1987;Mills, Parkman, & Spruill, 1996;Kerr & Hindmarch 1998;Wesnes, Garratt, Wickens, Gudgeon, & Oliver, 2000) Sustained attention (continuous performance task) (Rohrbaugh et al, 1988;Mongrain & Standing 1989) Perception of danger/risk taking hazard perception latency (Klonoff 1974;Hansteen et al, 1976;Rimm et al, 1982;McMillen & Wells-Parker 1987;...…”