Lost in the Sauce: the Effects of Alcohol on Mind Wandering

Sayette, M.A., Reichle, E.D., Schooler, J.W.

Article date: 2009

Title of the article: Lost in the sauce: The effects of alcohol on mind wandering

Title of the Journal: Psychological Science

Volume Number: 20

Page Numbers: 6

Ami Patel

PSY 100.102

October, 3 2011

Summary

The result of the psychological experiment suggested that alcohol increases mind wandering while simultaneously reducing the likelihood of noticing one's mind wandering. Past research (Sayette, 1993) suggests that the association between alcohol and distraction is /complex. Environmental distractors can influence the impact of intoxication on emotion and behavior, but alcohol may affect sensitivity to distraction. In this study, participants performed the mind-wandering task after consuming either alcohol or a placebo, and the purpose of the current study was to test the effect of alcohol on both the occurrence of mind wandering and the capacity to notice that one's mind has wandered. The authors hypothesize that alcohol reduced self-awareness and increased the overall amount of time spent mind-wandering, and interferes with the capacity to notice that one's mind has wandered.

Participants were fifty-four native English-speaking healthy men between ages 21 to 35 who were recruited via newspaper ads. Eligible participants were told to avoid eating or drinking caffeine within 4 hour of the session, not to use alcohol or drugs with 24 hour of the session, and not to smoke for 1 hour prior to the session. They were also told that their breath would be measured to confirm compliance. Participants were grouped in two: half received 0.82 g of alcohol per kilogram of body weight: half received a placebo. They were instructed to read text of chapters 1-5 of War and Peace (Tolstoy, 1864-1869/1982) using an IBM-compatible computer and "homegrown" software (written in Borland C++ 4.0), and the responses were recorded with 1-s accuracy. Procedure involved two assessments, pre-drink and post-drink assessments. In the pre-drink assessment the participants' height and weight were recorded on arrival. An initial blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reading was obtained, and participants rated their intoxication using a subjective intoxication scale (SIS) ranging 0 to 100. In post-drink assessment BAC readings and SIS ratings were recorded about 39 min after the start of drinking for all participants. The control group (the belief that one is drinking) received a BAC reading which ranged from 0.045% to 0.047%. Then the participants