Effects of ethanol and tobacco on divided attention.

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Abstract
The effect of cigarette smoking on alcohol-induced changes in divided attention tasks was studied in 22 university students (men, aged 19-30), all regular smokers and normal users of alcohol. Alcohol was given 15 min before tests in doses of 2.8 ml of 35% alcohol/kg of body weight, diluted to 375 ml; mean blood alcohol concentrations in different experiments ranged between 0.055 and o.08%. Each student was tested 4 times, after alcohol and a placebo drink, alone or with cigarettes. Ten participated in sessions that involved smoking up to 3 cigarettes (1.3 mg of nicotine/cigarette) and tasks 1 and 2, and 12 subjects, in sessions involving 1 cigarette and task 3. In task 1, students were required to report the location of a 1000 count/s tone within random bursts of 40 dB noise on 1 sound channel while ignoring a series of clicks on another channel, and then to report number of clicks while ignoring the tone. In task 2 they reported location of the tone and number of clicks. In task 3 the students reported tone location and number of clicks 3 times. In tasks 1 and 2 a significant increase in error rate after alcohol was counteracted by the decline in error rate caused by cigarettes. In task 3 the combined error rate of all 3 repetitions increased after alcohol but not after the single cigarette. Tobacco use apparently can confound results of experiments with alcohol.