The Study

The study consisted of six tasks including the CANTAB’s Intra-extradimensional set shifting task and Spatial working memory task. At its inception hangover research involved an idiosyncratic set of tasks which created a challenging environment for direct comparisons. In recent years, tasks such as the Stroop and Eriksen’s Flanker task have become standardised in hangover research. Nonetheless, it is paramount that we now move beyond this to explore processes and procedures in depth to help understand why performance is affected. The extensive and detailed output measures from the CANTAB battery provide a great opportunity to do this. As well as this, it allows us to introduce a standardised task battery from which future hangover research can be compared, as well as allowing for direct comparisons of other recreational drug effects such as cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine.

As expected, when we compared hangover and control groups, we found significantly slower responses on Stroop and Eriksen’s Flanker task responses. Free recall was also impaired but no significant differences were revealed for divided attention or spatial working memory. As we often find differences in response time but not errors, the investigations of Intra-Extradimensional set shifting error variables from the CANTAB were relatively exploratory in nature. Intradimensional but not extradimensional errors differed significantly across hangover and control groups. Indeed, fewer errors were made by the hangover group than the no hangover group.

Intra-dimensional set shifting is thought to be less difficult than extradimensional set shifting as it does not involve a change in target dimensions. However, this task was not timed and one possible reason for the outcome is that hungover participants may have sacrificed time in order to improve response accuracy whereas non-hungover participants may have felt more confidence in the intra-dimensional trials and subsequently made more mistakes. Indeed, the speed-accuracy trade off may have resulted in more response caution in hungover participants as has been suggested by Grange, Stephens, Jones and Owen (2016) also. This may also account for the differences in response times but not errors that we often find in traditionally used tasks. We have since conducted research applying signal detection theory analysis to both address this speculation and help get to the nub of the decision making and attention to action processes at play during a hangover. We are hoping to prepare our article in the coming months- watch this space!