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Age at First Drink Relates to Behavioral Measures of Impulsivity: The Immediate and Delayed Memory Tasks
Author(s) -
Dougherty Donald M.,
Mathias Charles W.,
Tester Melissa L.,
Marsh Dawn M.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1097/01.alc.0000117834.53719.a8
Subject(s) - impulsivity , age groups , analysis of variance , psychology , medicine , alcohol , young adult , demography , developmental psychology , biology , biochemistry , sociology
A bstract : Background: This study examined the relationship between laboratory‐measured impulsivity and age at first drink. Methods: Using a laboratory behavioral measure of impulsivity [Immediate (IMT) and Delayed Memory Tasks (DMT)], we compared two groups of women differing in their self‐reported age at first drink (early‐onset drinking, age <18 years, n = 40; late‐onset drinking, age ≥21 years, n = 23). It was expected that those who first consumed alcohol before the legal drinking age (i.e., early onset) would perform in a more impulsive manner on the laboratory behavioral measure than the late‐onset drinkers. Results: The main finding was that the early‐onset group (IMT: mean, 28.7%; DMT: mean, 30.4%) had increased commission error rates compared with the late‐onset group (IMT: mean, 21.2%; DMT: mean, 15.5%) during both the IMT [ANOVA: F (1,61) = 4.30; p = 0.042; f = 0.27] and DMT [ F (1,61) = 10.76; p = 0.002; f = 0.42]. Age at first drink was significantly correlated with DMT commission errors ( r =−0.23; p = 0.037), although this was only at the trend level for IMT commission errors ( r =−0.20; p = 0.062); these correlations are likely to be underestimates because of range restriction of the age variable. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that differences in impulsive behavioral responding are distinguishable even between groups of alcohol drinkers who are not experiencing clinically significant problems with alcohol.