The effects of alcohol on prose memory.

The present study examined the effects of acute alcoholic intoxication on prose memory. Intoxicated and sober subjects listened to six narrative passages at different presentation rates. Immediately after listening to a tape-recorded version of each story, subjects orally recalled it. The results demonstrated that sober subjects recalled more than intoxicated subjects, but subjects from both groups favored the main ideas in their recalls. However, at the fastest presentation rate, intoxicated subjects showed some diminished sensitivity to the semantic structure of prose. It was suggested that alcohol induced deficits in prose memory may result from a general slowing in the rate with which text is encoded into working memory.