Abstract
The benzodiazepines slow information processing and the sites of this slowing were mapped using the Additive Factors Method in combination with the P300 component of the event-related brain potential. It was assumed that P300 largely reflects the time to evaluate a stimulus while reaction time (RT) reflects this time plus the time to select and execute a response. Twelve subjects were administered 0.25 mg triazolam in a repeated measures single-blind design. A visual 80–20% oddball task was used in which stimulus intensity and signal quality were manipulated with accuracy of responding held constant at a high level. RT and EEG data were collected simultaneously and the P300 elicited by the low probability stimuli was measured on a single trial basis. Triazolam slowed RT (172 ms,P<0.0003) more than P300 (88 ms,P<0.0007), but both measures exhibited a drug × stimulus intensity interaction. RT also exhibited a drug × signal quality interaction but P300 did not. These results suggest that triazolam has selective effects on perceptual processing by slowing an early preprocessing stage but not a later feature extraction stage. In addition, the drug appears to slow some aspect of response processing. This evidence is taken as support for a multiple process rather than a general sedation view of benzodiazepine effects on stages of processing.
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Pang, E., Fowler, B. Discriminating the effects of triazolam on stimulus and response processing by means of reaction time and P300 latency. Psychopharmacology 115, 509–515 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02245575
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02245575