| Abstract: | In a balanced-placebo design, 160 male moderate to heavy drinkers (aged 21–35 yrs) expected either an alcohol drink or placebo drink and consumed either alcohol (1 ml/kg) or placebo. Shortly thereafter, each S attempted to recall the answers to general-information questions (e.g., "What is the capital of Chile?"), made confidence judgments about the accuracy of recall, made feeling-of-knowing judgments on all nonrecalled items, and received a recognition test. Unanticipated outcomes included the following: (a) Alcohol intoxication significantly hindered recall from long-term memory, contrary to previous conclusions that alcohol does not affect retrieval; (b) Ss' expectancy of alcohol had no significant effect on memory or metamemory performance, contrary to its established effects on other kinds of performance; (c) Alcohol intoxication produced no significant overconfidence in judgments about recall or in feeling-of-knowing judgments, contrary to the overconfidence produced in other kinds of judgments such as an intoxicated person's assessment of his/her driving ability. This last outcome implies that alcohol intoxication does not produce a general lowering of the threshold for confidence but rather has effects that are situation specific. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
