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EFFECTS OF NICOTINE ABSTINENCE ON ORIENTING,
EXECUTIVE FUNCTION, AROUSAL AND VIGILANCE.
by
Anthony Joseph Rissling
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PSYCHOLOGY)
May 2008
Copyright 2008 Anthony Joseph Rissling
Object Description
| Title | Effects of nicotine abstinence on orienting, executive function, arousal and vigilance |
| Author | Rissling, Anthony Joseph |
| Author email | rissling@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Psychology |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-03-28 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-04-16 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Dawson, Michael E. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Schell, Anne M. John, Richard Walsh, David McClure, William |
| Abstract | Following the neural network model of attention proposed by Posner and associates two experiments were conducted. Student smokers were tested following smoking and overnight abstinence to measure the effects of smoking on the specific processes of attention (orienting, executive function, alerting). A group of nonsmokers was tested twice without nicotine manipulation. During Experiment 1 the two psychophysiological indices of attention, skin conductance orienting response and prepulse inhibition of the startle eyeblink reflex were employed to test the effects of nicotine on the attentional processes of orienting and executive function. No effect of smoking was evidenced compared to abstinence on the psychophysiological measures. The results of Experiment 1 indicated smoking did not affect the processes of orienting or executive function when measured by the two psychophysiological indices. Nonsmoker responses did not differ between comparable tests following continued abstinence. During Experiment 2 three continuous performance tasks were employed that manipulated the burden on early visual processing and vigilance to test the effects of nicotine on these functions.; Abstinence among smokers produced reliably lower vigilance performance compared to ad lib smoking on the two tasks that presented degraded stimuli and burdened early visual processing. The results indicate that smoking abstinence affects the attentional processes of orienting and executive function during the early stages of stimulus processing. Performance of nonsmokers did not differ between comparable tests following continued abstinence. A test of the differential effect of smoking and abstinence on males and females did not result in any differences for any of the dependent variables during Experiment 1 or 2. The autonomic rate of responding and level did not predict behavioral performance on the any of the three continuous performance tasks employed following smoking or abstinence indicating arousal did not affect the three processes of attention (orienting, executive function or alerting). |
| Keyword | attention; startle eyeblink; continuous performance tests; skin conductance |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1138 |
| Rights | Rissling, Anthony Joseph |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Rissling-20080416 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume14/etd-Rissling-20080416.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | EFFECTS OF NICOTINE ABSTINENCE ON ORIENTING, EXECUTIVE FUNCTION, AROUSAL AND VIGILANCE. by Anthony Joseph Rissling A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PSYCHOLOGY) May 2008 Copyright 2008 Anthony Joseph Rissling |
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