Alcohol-related words of positive affect are more accessible in social drinkers' memory than are other words when sip-primed by alcohol

Alcohol-related consequences of consumption with positive affect an: claimed to be more accessible in memory than are negative, and to a limited extent this has been demonstrated with recall paradigms. This hypothesis is tested with a more robust recognition paradigm, the automated Stroop. A 3-factor mixed design was used: between subjects factor was Prime (soft or alcoholic drink); two within subjects factors were related to the Stroop word stimuli, Affect (positive or negative) and Alcohol-relatedness (related or unrelated). Sixty paid, volunteer, social drinkers took part. Binary colour choice RTs were measured and Stroop Interference RTs were derived in the standard way. Only correct RTs were analysed. Using a 2x2x2 ANOVA, a significant 3-way interaction was found (p=0.029) Words depicting positive consequences of alcohol consumption had significantly higher interference scores than did words depicting negative in the group primed with alcohol drink sips but not in the group primed with soft drink sips.