A Critical Tracking Task as an Alcohol Interlock System

Alcohol experiments on driving-related behavior: A review of the 1972-1973 literature- Alcohol countermeasures literature review

“…The one positive exception to the negative answer given above stems from the two attempts to utilize adaptive assessment techniques in alcohol research with driving simulators. Although the two studies reviewed (Strasser et al, 1973;Tennant & Thompson, 1973) both suffered from a number of very serious methodological problems, the results taken in combination do imply that the adaptive assessment technique may prove sufficiently sensitive to alcohol impairment to provide a very useful methodological tool for future investigations.…”

“…Two such studies have been presented (Strasser, Brilling, Klinger, & Muller-Limmroth, 1973;Tennant & Thompson, 1973) and others are known to be under way.…”

“…The mean BAC was 110 mg/100 ml, with a range from 56 to 190 mg/100 ml (apparently not including data from the 7 sub jects who became ill). Given this extremely wide range of BACs, Tennant and Regarding threshold CTT scores that might be applied for interlock pur poses (i.e., cutting scores), Tennant and Thompson (1973) stated that for BACs of 100 and 140 mg/100 ml, failure rates of 50% and 75%, respectively, can be achieved with a sober failure rate of 0. In other words, 50% and 25% false negatives at BACs of 100 and 140 mg/100 ml, respectively, but no false posi tives.…”

“…In an attempt to devise a valid alcohol-interlock system for eventual installation in cars (analogous in purpose to the Phystester discussed above), researchers at General Motors have turned to adaptive assessment techniques (Tennant, 1973;Tennant & Thompson, 1973). They have labeled their version "The Critical Tracking Task" (CTT), which is a compensatory tracking task that uses an oscilliscope for the display and an isometric force stick for the control manipulator.…”