Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on a Multi-task Simulator Operation Performance

Abstract

Simulator experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of alcohol intoxication on task performance. Nineteen graduate school students participated in the experiments. Their measured performance in a simple reaction time task showed no significant differences between sober and intoxicated conditions. On the other hand, their measured performance in cognitive multiple tasks performed on the simulator, Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB), showed significant differences among the intoxicated conditions. The scores of an MATB tracking task in particular indicated a noticeable decline in performance. These results suggest that the effects of alcohol tended to appear in a multi-task situation and that the tracking task, resembling vehicle lane-keeping, was easily affected by alcohol intoxication.