Date of Award
5-2000
Honors Thesis Number
011608
Major
Psychology
Abstract
Caffeine is the most popular psychotropic drug (Smith & Tola, 1998) and is known to be used for its stimulating effects (Benowitz, 1990) as well as its enhancing effects on sustained attention (Smith, 1994, & Rusted, 1994). Effects of caffeine on attention and performance tasks have been studied quite extensively. Results have varied, but caffeine has generally been found to enhance attention and improve performance. An aspect yet to be studied is the effects of caffeine on vigilance performance given emotionally distracting stimuli. The focus of this paper is on the effects of caffeine on vigilance performance as well as hemispheric differences and lateralization of affect and task performance.
COinS