ATTENTION TASKS AS SKILLS PERFORMANCE MEASURES OF DRUG EFFECTS

Both empirical epidemiological data on the causes of traffic accidents and conceptual models of skilled human performance stress the central role of perception and cognition. This paper examines the effects of drugs on two major components of cognitive perceptual performance, namely, concentrated attention or vigilance and divided attention. It is demonstrated that these two types of attention tasks are differentially affected by various drugs, so that sometimes one and sometimes another of these tasks is impaired. Various experimental paradigms to investigate these two attention functions are presented. It is demonstrated that attention tasks are frequently highly sensitive to drug effects, suggesting the importance of examining these functions when investigating the effects of drugs on skills performance.(a*)

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/03065251
• Corporate Authors:

  Blackwell Scientific Publications Limited

  Osney Mead
  Oxford OX2 0EL,   England 
• Authors:
  • Moskowitz, H
• Publication Date: 1984

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 51S-61S
• Serial:
  • British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
  • Volume: 18
  • Publisher: Blackwell Scientific Publications Limited
  • ISSN: 0306-5251
  • EISSN: 1365-2125
  • Serial URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2125

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Alertness; Crash causes; Crashes; Drivers; Driving; Drugs; Human factors; Motor skills; Perception; Stress (Psychology); Traffic crashes
• ITRD Terms: 1643: Accident; 2238: Attention; 1772: Driver; 2242: Drugs; 2229: Perception; 2205: Skill (road user); 2234: Stress (psychol)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00456340
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• Report/Paper Numbers: Suppl 1
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Jul 31 1986 12:00AM