Date of Award

9-1-1994

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Prior research suggests that performing concurrent listening tasks while viewing pictures limits the area of the picture subjects view and the amount they remember. Intoxicated subjects fixate moving objects ignoring other objects more than sober subjects. Both situations demonstrate reduced visual attention. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of alcohol and capacity demands on visual attention by recording the eye movements of sober and intoxicated subjects viewing static scenes while performing a concurrent listening task. Two groups of eighteen subjects (12 male and 6 females each) were tested after they ingested either a lemonade beverage mixed with 1 ml of absolute ethanol per kg of body weight or distilled water. Eye movements were recorded as subjects viewed 3 slides of scenes for 20 sec each while performing a simple listening task, 3 while performing a complex listening task, and 3 while performing no listening task. A memory test was given after the scenes were viewed. A Gulf and Western Eye Monitor recorded eye fixation durations, fixation locations and pupil diameters. Repeated measures analyses using the MANOVA approach were performed on the data.During the early viewing period of the 20 sec picture exposure time, more informative areas were viewed and fixation durations were longer compared to later in the viewing period. All subjects performing a concurrent task examined less picture area than when only viewing scenes and their pupil diameters varied directly with task complexity. Simple listening task performance was more accurate than complex listening task performance. The fixation durations of intoxicated subjects were longer than sober subjects but sober subjects recognized more scenes than did intoxicated subjects.It was concluded that intoxicated subjects examined as much of the picture area and performed the listening tasks as well as sober subjects, but even though they used longer fixations, allowing more time to process visual information, the visual attentional capacity of intoxicated subjects was reduced and demonstrated by poorer memory of the scenes. Small effects sizes and small cell sizes resulted in low power in the study.

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