Alcohol intoxication and memory for events: A snapshot of alcohol myopia in a real-world drinking scenario |
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| Authors: | Nadja Schreiber Compo Jacqueline R. Evans Rolando N. Carol Daniel Kemp Daniella Villalba Lindsay S. Ham |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology , Florida International University , Miami, FL, USA schreibe@fiu.edu;3. Department of Psychology , University of Texas at El Paso , El Paso, TX, USA;4. Department of Psychology , Florida International University , Miami, FL, USA;5. Department of Psychology , University of Arkansas , Fayetteville, AR, USA |
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| Abstract: | Alcohol typically has a detrimental impact on memory across a variety of encoding and retrieval conditions (e.g., Mintzer, 2007; Ray & Bates, 2006). No research has addressed alcohol's effect on memory for lengthy and interactive events and little has tested alcohol's effect on free recall. In this study 94 participants were randomly assigned to alcohol, placebo, or control groups and consumed drinks in a bar-lab setting while interacting with a “bartender”. Immediately afterwards all participants freely recalled the bar interaction. Consistent with alcohol myopia theory, intoxicated participants only differed from placebo and control groups when recalling peripheral information. Expanding on the original hypervigilance hypothesis, placebo participants showed more conservative reporting behaviour than the alcohol or control groups by providing more uncertain and “don't know” responses. Thus, alcohol intoxication had confined effects on memory for events, supporting and extending current theories. |
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| Keywords: | Event memory Alcohol intoxication Alcohol myopia Hypervigilance hypothesis |
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