Effects of alcohol hangover on attentional resources during a verbal memory/psychomotor tracking dual attention task

Abstract

Background Alcohol hangover (AH) is associated with impaired attention and memory performance. However, whether this effect is related to reduced attentional resources remains unclear. Aims A dual-attention paradigm was employed to assess the effects of AH on attentional resources, delayed memory recognition, and the interaction between attentional load and AH. Mental effort and perceived performance during AH and control conditions were also assessed. Methods A seminaturalistic, crossover design was used. In total, 25 healthy social drinkers aged 18–35 years, visited the laboratory following a typical night out drinking (Hangover condition) and after alcohol abstinence (control) between 8:30 am and 12:30 pm, with conditions counterbalanced. Attentional load was manipulated via the presence (dual attention) or absence of psychomotor tracking during verbal memory encoding. Perceived mental effort and performance were measured using the NASA-TLX. Participants’ recollected alcohol consumption was used to compute estimated blood alcohol level (eBAC). Results Compared with the control visit, AH was associated with reduced recognition accuracy (particularly more false negatives), higher “tracking costs” (poorer accuracy) in the dual attention condition, increased ratings of “mental demand,” “effort,” and “frustration,” and lower ratings of task performance. There was also a significant main effect of attentional load with poorer recognition accuracy and response time in the dual attention condition. There were no significant interaction effects between hangover and attentional load. Conclusion These findings suggest that reduced attentional resources contribute to the cognitive deficits associated with AH including impaired memory consolidation. They further suggest that while hungover, participants are aware of these deficits but are unable to compensate.

A review of the effect of alcohol hangover on attention and memory

“…Moreover, subjects in the AH group had significantly worse performance in the word recognition task than that in the control group, independent of attentional load (single condition vs. divided attention condition). These results indicated that AH state did not affect people's attentional resource capacity but it influenced the allocation processes of attentional resources, leading to depleted attentional resources in each of the two competing tasks [5]. The researchers also suggested that people might only have impaired divided attention performance in different modalities (e.g.…”

“…In addition, long-term memory was further separated into retrospective memory (retrieval of past information) and prospective memory (ability to conduct the planned behaviour in a predetermined time period) [8]. Ayre et al indicated that attention is related to memory as attentional resources are involved in efficient memory functioning [5].…”

“…In addition, some researchers explored the mechanism of impaired divided attention during AH. Ayre et al applied a dual-attention semi-naturalistic paradigm on social drinkers using a within-subject design to test their divided attention performance [5]. For both AH and control groups, participants completed two sessions: single condition and divided attention condition.…”

“…Current researches showed that cognitive deficit was one of the most obvious AH symptoms including psychomotor speed, shortterm memory, long-term memory, and sustained attention [4]. These impaired cognitive functions also led to significant socioeconomic losses in many developed countries due to reduced productivity or absenteeism among employees [5]. However, the findings about the effects of AH on cognitive functioning (especially attention and memory performance) were inconsistent.…”

Does Personality, Trait Emotion Regulation, and Trait Attentional Control Contribute toward the Experience and Impact of an Alcohol Hangover?

“…One explanation is that alcohol hangover reduces available attentional resources that can be utilized to complete complex tasks [ 15 ]. Participants also report needing to exert greater effort when completing tasks during a hangover relative to a no-hangover control, which further suggests a reduction in available attentional resources [ 13 , 16 ]. This available resource reduction may occur due to attention-consuming symptoms (e.g., headache; [ 17 ], poorer information processing [ 18 ] or both.…”