Background

Humans interact with multiple stimuli across several modalities each day. The “redundant signal effect” refers to the observation that individuals respond more quickly to stimuli when information is presented as multisensory, redundant stimuli (e.g., aurally and visually), rather than as a single stimulus presented to either modality alone. Studies of alcohol effects on human performance show that alcohol induced impairment is reduced when subjects respond to redundant multisensory stimuli. However, redundant signals do not need to involve multisensory stimuli to facilitate behavior as studies have shown facilitating effects by redundant unisensory signals that are delivered to the “same sensory” (e.g., two visual or two auditory signals).

Methods

The current study examined the degree to which redundant visual signals would reduce alcohol impairment and compared the magnitude of this effect with that produced by redundant multisensory signals. On repeated test sessions, participants (n = 20) received placebo or 0.65 g/kg alcohol and performed a two-choice reaction time task that measured how quickly participants responded to four different signal conditions. The four conditions differed by the modality of the target presentation: visual, auditory, multisensory, and unisensory.

Results

Alcohol slowed performance in all conditions and reaction times were generally faster in the redundant signal conditions. Both multisensory and unisensory redundant signals reduced the impairing effects of alcohol compared with single signals.

Conclusions

These findings indicate that the ability of redundant signals to counteract alcohol impairment does not require multisensory input. Duplicate signals to the same modality can also reduce alcohol impairment.

中文翻译：

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多余的视觉信号减少了酒精损害的强度。

背景

每天，人类会通过多种方式与多种刺激相互作用。“冗余信号效应”是指以下观察结果：当信息以多感官，冗余刺激（例如，听觉和视觉上）呈现，而不是以单个刺激形式呈现给任何一种方式时，个体对刺激的反应更快。酒精对人的行为的影响研究表明，当受试者对多余的多感觉刺激做出反应时，酒精引起的损伤会减少。然而，冗余信号不需要涉及多感官刺激来促进行为，因为研究表明，传递到“相同感官”的冗余单感信号（例如，两个视觉信号或两个听觉信号）具有促进作用。

方法

当前的研究检查了冗余视觉信号减少酒精损害的程度，并将这种影响的程度与冗余多感官信号产生的程度进行了比较。在重复的测试中，参与者（n = 20）接受安慰剂或0.65 g / kg酒精，并执行了两项选择的反应时间任务，该任务测量了参与者对四种不同信号条件的响应速度。四个条件因目标呈现方式的不同而不同：视觉，听觉，多感觉和单感觉。

结果

在所有条件下，酒精都会降低性能，在冗余信号条件下，反应时间通常更快。与单信号相比，多传感器和单传感器冗余信号均减少了酒精的损害作用。

结论

这些发现表明，冗余信号抵消酒精损害的能力不需要多感觉输入。向相同模式重复输入信号也可以减少酒精损害。