Selectively attending to natural scenes after alcohol consumption: an ERP analysis.
Alcohol effects on cognitive, emotional and behavioral processes have been linked to an impairment of attention. Because attention operates at the level of specific cognitive subsystems, recent studies demonstrated alcohol effects in specific post-perceptual processes such as response selection and working memory. Measuring event-related potentials, the present study focused on perceptual processes by utilizing a categorization task where participants had to decide whether briefly presented images contained an animal or not. Findings demonstrate an early differential ERP activity for target compared to non-target images, which was reduced after alcohol intoxication. Thus, alcohol intoxication had deleterious effects at the perceptual level of processing considered to reflect the interaction of top-down (category-related) and bottom-up (stimulus-driven) processes. In addition, post-perceptual processes were also impaired by alcohol intoxication.
De Cesarei
Andrea
A
Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5-40127 Bologna, Italy.
Codispoti
Maurizio
M
Schupp
Harald T
HT
Stegagno
Luciano
L
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000187:drug effects; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001288:Attention / Q000187:drug effects*; D001921:Brain / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants / Q000494:pharmacology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000187:drug effects; D003463:Cues; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004777:Environment; D000431:Ethanol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants; D000431:Ethanol