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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Acute Alcohol Consumption Impairs Controlled But Not Automatic Processes In A Psychophysical Pointing Paradigm., Kevin Johnston, Brian Timney, Melvyn A Goodale
Acute Alcohol Consumption Impairs Controlled But Not Automatic Processes In A Psychophysical Pointing Paradigm., Kevin Johnston, Brian Timney, Melvyn A Goodale
Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications
Numerous studies have investigated the effects of alcohol consumption on controlled and automatic cognitive processes. Such studies have shown that alcohol impairs performance on tasks requiring conscious, intentional control, while leaving automatic performance relatively intact. Here, we sought to extend these findings to aspects of visuomotor control by investigating the effects of alcohol in a visuomotor pointing paradigm that allowed us to separate the influence of controlled and automatic processes. Six male participants were assigned to an experimental "correction" condition in which they were instructed to point at a visual target as quickly and accurately as possible. On a small …
Effects Of Acute Ethyl Alcohol Consumption On A Psychophysical Measure Of Lateral Inhibition In Human Vision., Kevin D Johnston, Brian Timney
Effects Of Acute Ethyl Alcohol Consumption On A Psychophysical Measure Of Lateral Inhibition In Human Vision., Kevin D Johnston, Brian Timney
Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications
Acute consumption of ethyl alcohol affects a variety of visual functions. However, there have been few systematic attempts to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying these effects. Here, we employed the Westheimer paradigm to investigate the hypothesis that alcohol reduces lateral inhibition within human "perceptive fields", the psychophysical analogue of physiological receptive fields. Westheimer functions obtained under alcohol and no-alcohol conditions at photopic, mesopic, and scotopic levels of adaptation showed changes consistent with an alcohol-induced decrease in lateral inhibition. We conclude that this decrease in lateral inhibition may be responsible for some of the changes in visual perception that result from …
Alcohol Slows Interhemispheric Transmission, Increases The Flash-Lag Effect, And Prolongs Masking: Evidence For A Slowing Of Neural Processing And Transmission., Sarah A Khan, Brian Timney
Alcohol Slows Interhemispheric Transmission, Increases The Flash-Lag Effect, And Prolongs Masking: Evidence For A Slowing Of Neural Processing And Transmission., Sarah A Khan, Brian Timney
Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications
While the alcohol literature is extensive, relatively little addresses the relationship between physiological effects and behavioural changes. Using the visual system as a model, we examined alcohol's influence on neural temporal processing as a potential means for alcohol's effects. We did this by using tasks that provided a measure of processing speed: Poffenberger paradigm, flash-lag, and backward masking. After moderate alcohol, participants showed longer interhemispheric transmission times, larger flash-lags, and prolonged masking. Our data are consistent with the view that alcohol slows neural processing, and provide support for a reduction in processing efficiency underlying alcohol-induced changes in temporal visual processing.
Effects Of Ethanol On Anti-Saccade Task Performance., Sarah A Khan, Kristen Ford, Brian Timney, Stefan Everling
Effects Of Ethanol On Anti-Saccade Task Performance., Sarah A Khan, Kristen Ford, Brian Timney, Stefan Everling
Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications
It has been shown that saccade-related neurons in the superior colliculus (SC) display an increased level of prestimulus activity and a higher stimulus-related burst in action potentials preceding direction errors in the anti-saccade task compared with correct anti-saccades. From this, it has been hypothesized that errors occur when the incoming visual signal in the SC passes a threshold and triggers a reflexive saccade. This hypothesis predicts that an attenuated visual signal will reduce the number of direction errors. Since ethanol has been shown to have a suppressive effect on cortical visual event-related potentials (ERPs), the purpose of the present study …