Sommer W, Leuthold H, Hermanutz M
Fachgruppe Psychologie, Universität Konstanz, Germany.
Percept Psychophys. 1993 Jul;54(1):127-35. doi: 10.3758/bf03206944.
Contradictory evidence as to the effects of alcohol on early information processing stages has been obtained from behavioral and psychophysiological investigations. In the present study, choice reaction times, error rates, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in a task in which variations in stimulus discriminability and of the (task irrelevant) correspondence between stimulus location and response location were orthogonally combined. Both discriminability and stimulus-response correspondence affected reaction time and electrophysiological chronometric measures as expected. However, no behavioral effects of alcohol were observed, possibly because of strategic adjustments. Psychophysiological chronometric measures indicated that alcohol leaves the initial flow of perceptual evidence to motor stages unimpaired, whereas it appears to increase the duration of stimulus evaluation. Interestingly, a number of alcohol effects appeared in the ERP amplitudes. Decrements in early ERP components indicate alcohol-induced impairments of involuntary visual attention and/or the automatic stimulus location-dependent activation of response channels. In contrast, a strong enhancement of a late slow-wave component under alcohol may reflect the investment of processing resources in order to maintain normal performance levels.
关于酒精对早期信息处理阶段影响的矛盾证据已从行为和心理生理学研究中获得。在本研究中，在一项任务中记录了选择反应时间、错误率和事件相关电位（ERP），该任务将刺激辨别力的变化以及（与任务无关的）刺激位置和反应位置之间的对应关系进行了正交组合。正如预期的那样，辨别力和刺激-反应对应关系都影响反应时间和电生理计时测量。然而，未观察到酒精对行为的影响，这可能是由于策略调整。心理生理计时测量表明，酒精并未损害从感知证据到运动阶段的初始流程，而似乎增加了刺激评估的持续时间。有趣的是，ERP振幅出现了一些酒精效应。早期ERP成分的减少表明酒精引起的非自愿视觉注意力受损和/或反应通道的自动刺激位置依赖性激活受损。相反，酒精作用下晚期慢波成分的强烈增强可能反映了为维持正常表现水平而投入的处理资源。
