The Simulated Evaluation of Drug Impairment (SEDI) is a computer-driven mathematical simulation of the driving task that evaluates the response to three channels of visual information using four buttons and a foot-pedal. It is a divided attention task and sensitive to the impairment caused by sedatives. The instrument automatically records the accuracy, speed and correctness of all responses. Typically 250 changes in information are presented in a two minute test cycle. This experiment examined the effects of low dose alcohol on the learning curve using subjects unfamiliar with the task. Forty police recruit volunteer subjects were randomly assigned to two groups who received either fruit juice containing alcohol or plain fruit juice. Each subject was given a brief introduction to the test and then 10 repeated attempts at the test cycle. The control group were indistinguishable from American university students and military personnel. The `alcohol' group had an average blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) of 0.075 percent. They learned more slowly and achieved lower overall scores than the controls. Learning an unfamiliar task is significantly impaired by alcohol at a low dosage. This provides a simple model for studying adaption to an unfamiliar divided-attention task. (A)
Abstract