Alcohol and elaborative schemas for sentences

Conducted 3 experiments to determine whether alcohol-induced impairments of memory would be reduced by providing 110 Ss with elaborative schemas. Anomalous sentences were presented to sober (So) or intoxicated (I) Ss either alone or with context words to facilitate comprehension. Memory was tested immediately with a yes-no recognition task. Results consistently show that context words did not increase the number of hits for either So or I Ss, and So Ss made reliably more hits whether or not context words had been provided. The accuracy of recognition of distractors, however, was consistently improved by the presentation of context words, and was much more improved for I than for So Ss. Results indicate that alcohol intoxication disrupted the production of elaborative schemas for understanding, but that I Ss were quite successful at utilizing such schemas as long as the schemas had been provided for them. (22 ref)