Effects of alcohol on the time course of visual information processing in woman

Alcohol is one of the most commonly consumed drugs in the world. While the effects of alcohol on cognitive and psychomotor skills have been well studied, little research has examined alcohol's effects on visual processing. In the present study, we evaluated the influence of a moderate dose of alcohol (0.4 g/kg) on visual processing; using a backward masking technique, shine-through (Herzog & Koch, 2001). A vernier was presented for a short time and followed by a grating comprising 25 or 5 elements. In order to control for the interaction of sex with effects of alcohol, participation was limited to females. 19 healthy volunteers, aged between 20 and 40 years (N=11 received alcohol; N=8 received placebo), participated. We found that alcohol deteriorated visual processing by a factor of. In addition, we showed that all subjects were sensitive to variations in the spatial and temporal layout of the mask, irrespective of whether alcohol was provided or not.