Department of Educational Science and Psychology, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2012 Jun;49(6):833-41. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2012.01356.x. Epub 2012 Feb 14.
Although a moderate blood alcohol concentration already affects attention, an effect on early visual processing is still questionable. Using psychophysical measures and visually evoked potentials (VEP), we examined the effects of alcohol on the processing of contrast and motion features. In our tasks, two lateralized stimuli were briefly presented, and participants had to identify either the stimulus of higher contrast or motion coherence. In the contrast task, alcohol was found to decrease the discrimination ability and induced a global attenuation of VEP amplitudes. In the motion task, discrimination was not impaired. VEP amplitudes were reduced contralateral to the target position, indicating an effect of alcohol on the deployment of visuospatial attention. In sum, our data suggest that specialized areas for motion and contrast processing within the visual cortex are differently sensitive to moderate alcohol exposure.
虽然中等血液酒精浓度已经会影响注意力，但它对早期视觉处理的影响仍存在疑问。我们使用心理物理学测量和视觉诱发电位（VEP）来研究酒精对对比度和运动特征处理的影响。在我们的任务中，两个侧向刺激短暂呈现，参与者必须识别出对比度或运动连贯性更高的刺激。在对比度任务中，发现酒精降低了辨别能力，并导致 VEP 幅度的全局衰减。在运动任务中，辨别能力没有受到损害。VEP 幅度在目标位置的对侧减小，表明酒精对视觉空间注意力的部署有影响。总之，我们的数据表明，视觉皮层中专门用于运动和对比度处理的区域对中等酒精暴露的敏感性不同。
