Amount of practice and degree of attentional control have no influence on the adverse effect of alcohol in word categorization and visual search tasks

Abstract

This study investigated ways in which practice, and the closely related factor of automaticity, might modify the effects of alcohol (0.8 ml/kg body weight) on word categorization and visual search. There were several possibilities: (1) Alcohol might have less effect on practiced than on unpracticed tasks, (2) practice with alcohol might allow adaptation to its effects, (3) alcohol might alter the rate of learning, and (4) alcohol might have less effect on tasks requiring automatic, as opposed to controlled, processing. Subjects participated in one session each day for either 2 or 5 days. The results revealed that alcohol impaired unpracticed and practiced performance to the same extent. In addition, those who practiced with alcohol for 4 days improved when switched to no alcohol on Day 5. Although alcohol impaired performance, there was no evidence that it reduced the benefit obtained from practice, that is, the rate of learning. Finally, almost identical effects of alcohol were observed for consistently mapped and variably mapped conditions (as developed by Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977, to illustrate automatic and controlled processing, respectively). The four possibilities can therefore be answered as follows: Several days of practice at a task does not reduce the impairment caused by alcohol. There is no evidence for either state-specific practice or different rates of learning with and without alcohol. The effect of alcohol is not influenced by the degree of involvement of attentional control in a task. © 1988 Psychonomic Society, Inc.