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Difficulty: MediumPhysiological Effects of Alcohol on Driving Performance

Alcohol consumption impairs a driver's simple reaction time (responding to a single expected stimulus) at a lower Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) than it impairs their physiological ability to divide attention between multiple traffic hazards.

Answer: Answer

Answer

The statement is false. Alcohol impairs complex cognitive tasks and divided-attention capabilities at lower blood alcohol concentrations before simple reflex reaction times are noticeably delayed.
The statement is false because alcohol affects complex cognitive integration—such as processing simultaneous sensory inputs while driving—at lower concentration levels than simple, single-stimulus reaction times.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the central nervous system impact of alcohol on cognitive tiering.
Alcohol acts as a depressant that degrades higher-order cerebral cortical functions prior to affecting basic subcortical or simple motor reflex arcs.
Dividing attention between lane tracking and traffic scanning requires high-level cognitive integration.
2
Compare onset thresholds for divided-attention impairment versus simple reaction time degradation.
Divided-attention performance begins to deteriorate at BAC levels as low as 0.02% to 0.05%, whereas simple motor reaction time to a single known stimulus typically shows measurable delay at higher BAC levels.
Multi-tasking demands continuous visual searching and information synthesis, which are the most sensitive physiological functions to alcohol depressant effects.

Key Concept

Differential sensitivity of divided-attention processing versus simple reaction time under alcohol impairment
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Physiological Effects of Alcohol on Driving Performance

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