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Nicotine reduces distraction under low perceptual load

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Abstract

Rationale

Several studies provide evidence that nicotine alleviates the detrimental effects of distracting sensory stimuli. It is been suggested that nicotine may either act as a stimulus filter that prevents irrelevant stimuli entering awareness or by enhancing the attentional focus to relevant stimuli via a boost in processing capacity.

Objectives

To differentiate between these two accounts, we administered nicotine to healthy non-smokers and investigated distractor interference in a visual search task with low and high perceptual load to tax processing capacity.

Methods

Thirty healthy non-smokers received either 7 mg transdermal nicotine or a matched placebo in a double blind within subject design 1 h prior to performing the visual search task with different fixation distractors.

Results

Nicotine reduced interference of incongruent distractors, but only under low-load conditions, where distractor effects were large. No effects of nicotine were observed under high-load conditions. Highly distractible subjects showed the largest effects of nicotine.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that nicotine acts primarily as a stimulus filter that prevents irrelevant stimuli from entering awareness in situations of high distractor interference.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation DFG TH766/6-1. The authors would wish to thank T. Espeseth for the advice on the paradigm.

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biological Psychology, Department of Psychology, European Medical School, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Ammerländer Heer Str. 114-118, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Oliver Behler, Thomas P. K. Breckel & Christiane M. Thiel

  2. Medical Physics, Department of Medical Physics and Acoustic, European Medical School, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Oliver Behler

  3. Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all”, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Christiane M. Thiel

  4. Research Center Neurosensory Science, Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Christiane M. Thiel

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  1. Oliver Behler
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  2. Thomas P. K. Breckel
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Correspondence to Christiane M. Thiel.

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Behler, O., Breckel, T.P.K. & Thiel, C.M. Nicotine reduces distraction under low perceptual load. Psychopharmacology 232, 1269–1277 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3761-5

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