The Continuum and Specificity of the Effects of Alcohol on Memory; A Review

Ryback, Ralph S.

doi:10.15288/qjsa.1971.32.995

Cited by 264 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 0 publications

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“…It was observed that alcohol had no effect on the immediate free recall task but had a detrimental effect on the delayed recognition task. This supports and extends the findings that intoxicated subjects are typically able to repeat new information immediately after its presentation (see Ryback, 1971, for an early review). In contrast, alcohol impairs the ability to store information across delays longer than a few seconds if they are distracted between presentation and testing (for a review, see White, 2003).…”

Section: Alcohol Condition No Alcohol Conditionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Direct comparison of the cognitive effects of acute alcohol with the morning after a normal night's drinking

McKinney

Coyle

Verster

2012

Human Psychopharmacology

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Objective The aim of this study was to compare performance measures after acute alcohol consumption (intoxication) with the performance the day after a normal night's drinking (hangover). Methods Eighty‐four social drinkers took part in two studies that followed a counterbalanced repeated measure design. Fifteen men and 33 women were tested the morning (09:00, 11:00 or 13:00 h) following normal/usual alcohol consumption and the morning after no alcohol consumption; the order of testing was counterbalanced. In a second study, 36 participants (18 men and 18 women) were tested after receiving alcohol to attain a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08%, and after no alcohol administration, the order of testing was counterbalanced. In both studies, participants completed a task battery of memory, reaction time and attention tasks. Results Alcohol had no effect on the free recall task and the spatial attention task. Alcohol consumption, either acute or the next day, significantly affected reaction time, divided attention, selective attention and Stroop interference. The impairments during intoxication and hangover were of comparable magnitude. Performance on tasks of delayed recognition and irregular interstimulus reaction time was worse during hangover when compared with intoxication. Conclusion It is evident that awareness needs to be raised that performance the morning after alcohol consumption is at the same level if not worse than when participants are at the legal limit for driving (0.08% blood alcohol concentration). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Alcohol Condition No Alcohol Conditionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Direct comparison of the cognitive effects of acute alcohol with the morning after a normal night's drinking

McKinney

Coyle

Verster

2012

Human Psychopharmacology

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“…Taken together, this enables intoxicated persons to engage in a conversation, even though the content of the conversation is forgotten a few minutes later (Curran, 2006). Given the positive correlation between alcohol dose and cognitive impairment (Curran, 2006;Ryback, 1971;White, 2003), the pattern of memory impairments found by Goodwin et al (1970) may be expected for lower alcohol doses as well, but to a lesser degree.…”

Section: The Importance Of Bac For Impairment Of Working Memory and Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Basic alcohol research, including fMRI-studies, using fuzzy-trace theory has proposed that moderate to high alcohol doses impair episodic memory capacity by disrupting the ability to consolidate memory traces, and that this effect is closely related to problems with maintaining focused attention (Birnbaum et al, 1978;Bjork & Gilman, 2014;Craik, 1977Craik, , 1982Knowles, 2005;Steele & Josephs, 1988). Hence, the information to be recalled does not seem to have been encoded sufficiently/distinctively enough to form a useful memory trace during moderate to high degrees of intoxication (Bjork & Gilman, 2014;Ryback, 1971;White, 2003).…”

Section: Fuzzy-trace Theory and Quantity-accuracy Trade-offmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the citation indicates, alcohol has a broad impact on cognition and affects many, if not all, cognitive functions. Alcohol starts to produce memory impairments after just one or two drinks, decreasing memory function further as the blood/breath alcohol concentration (BAC/BrAC) rises, which culminates in blackout (i.e., amnesia) at very high BAC-levels (Curran, 2006;Ryback, 1971;White, 2003). These effects of alcohol have made it hard for the justice system to trust intoxicated witnesses, since although these witnesses are common, they are generally perceived as less reliable than sober witnesses (Evans & Schreiber Compo, 2010;Kassin, Tubb, Hosch & Memon, 2001;Palmer, Flowe, Takarangi & Humphries, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Interviewing intoxicated witnesses: Memory performance in theory and practice

Karlén

2017

Scandinavian J Psychology

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Memory encoding and recall involving complex, effortful cognitive processes are impaired by alcohol primarily due to impairment of a select few, but crucial, cortical areas. This review shows how alcohol affects some, but not all, aspects of eyewitnesses' oral free recall performance. The principal results, so far, are that: a) free recall reports by intoxicated witnesses (at the investigated BAC-levels) may contain less, but as accurate, information as reports by sober witnesses; b) immediate reports given by intoxicated witnesses may yield more information compared to reports by sober witnesses given after a one week delay; c) an immediate interview may enhance both intoxicated and sober witnesses' ability to report information in a later interview; and d) reminiscence seems to occur over repeated interviews and the new information seems to be as accurate as the previously reported information. Based on this, recommendations are given for future research to enhance understanding of the multifaceted impact of alcohol on witnesses' oral free recall of violent crimes.

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“…The continuity theory of brain dysfunction 17 was first suggested by Ryback [1971] 18 who proposed a continuum of 1 A zero score is the worst possible score. The aetiology of alcohol-related brain damage is likely to include the cumulative effect of alcohol and/or its metabolites, nutritional insults such as thiamin deficiency or protein-energy malnutrition, periods of alcohol withdrawal and therapy, head trauma, bouts of anoxia, the effect of disease of major organs such as the liver and the lungs, the effect of ageing and, possibly, genetic factors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%