Assessment of the Effect of Smoking on Cognition in Young Adults

Abstract

Smoking is an action in which the resultant smoke post-burning is breathed in to be gustated and released into the bloodstream. It causes many undesired effects in people. The main aim of the present investigation is to investigate the effect of smoking on cognition in young adults. For this, a questionnaire and some simple tests have been performed for the selected students. A total of 40 students were taken into study, out of which 20 were smokers and 20 were non-smokers. In the digit symbol substitution test, students were asked to draw a circle around even numbers and a triangle over odd numbers. In the digit vigilance test, the students were asked to cut off all 6 and 9 numbers. In the category fluency test, they were asked to list out the animal names in one minute. In attention switching task, a total of 30 slides were displayed and for each condition different sounding patterns should be made on the table. Smokers took more time to perform digit symbol substitution, digit vigilance and attention-switching tasks than non-smokers. Smokers could not write more animal names when compared to non-smokers. In all the tests, the number of errors performed by smokers is greater than that of non-smokers. This indicates reduced psychomotor and brain functioning in smokers when compared to non-smokers. All the results were statistically analyzed. Thus, from the current research, it was concluded that smoking in young adult students has declined cognitive functioning.