The effects of cigarette smoking on vigilance performance

Each of 24 Ss completed an auditory vigilance task after smoking either a "low" nicotine cigarette (12 Ss) or a "middle" nicotine cigarette (12 Ss) and served as his own control in an identical session one week before or after the test session. The smoking was followed by improved vigilance in both groups as compared with the control performance. The improvement came about in different ways for the two groups. The low nicotine group recorded improved detection, the middle nicotine group reduced false positive rate. These effects are attributed to the known differential, biphasic effects of nicotine on performance.