The effects of psychomotor stimulants and gender on visual searching task performance

The literature indicates that the psychomotor stimulants improve performance on most cognitive and perceptual tasks. Gender has also been found to be an important variable in affecting performance and perception.

To investigate the effects of stimulant drugs and gender on perceptual-motor tasks, neuropsychological assessment techniques are needed to provide sensitive indices of the extent to which these drugs enhance or compromise an individual's visual-motor efficiency. The present study was designed to examine the sensitivity of the Computerized Visual Searching Task (CVST) with male and female amphetamine and cocaine users. This study hypothesized that both the male and female stimulant drug users would perform faster on the CVST than the optimal mean performance time, with no difference between genders.

The data, collected from patient files, supported the hypotheses showing a significant difference between the mean performance times, and no significance in performance times due to gender. The results of an ANOVA indicated no" significance for main effects or interaction between the independent variables. Therefore, no causative variables for the mean differences could be determined.