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The effect of smoking/nicotine on response selection
Author(s) -
Houlihan Michael E.,
Pritchard Walter S.,
Robinson John H.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
human psychopharmacology: clinical and experimental
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.461
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1099-1077
pISSN - 0885-6222
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1077(199901)14:1<31::aid-hup61>3.0.co;2-1
Subject(s) - nicotine , stimulus (psychology) , perception , psychology , cognition , nicotine dependence , audiology , smoking cessation , cognitive psychology , medicine , neuroscience , pathology
Nicotine taken by ad lib smoking or other routes of administration has been reported to shorten reaction time (RT) in many cognitive tasks. Most of these tasks have used visually presented stimuli and require a simple motor response such as a button press. The reliance on this type of RT task makes it difficult to determine the specific stage(s) affected by smoking/nicotine. Event‐related potential studies indicate that visual perceptual processing is faster after smoking/nicotine. However, recent studies indicated that the magnitude of this enhancement is not sufficient to explain the total improvement in RT performance due to smoking/nicotine. These studies suggest that a significant performance‐enhancement effect may occur after the decision or classification of stimuli is completed. The next logical step in the information processing chain is response selection. We examined the effect of smoking/nicotine on response selection in a stimulus‐response compatibility task. In this double‐blind study, easy response‐selection RTs were facilitated by smoking/nicotine but difficult response‐selection RTs were not. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.