The Impact of Alcohol on the Stroop Effect

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The Impact of Alcohol on the Stroop Effect Dana Real University of Maryland Global Campus PSYC 300 7381 Research Methods in Psychology Professor Anna Lissitz May 2, 2023

The Impact of Alcohol on the Stroop Effect Abstract The Stroop Effect, devised from J. Ridley Stroop’s research, began as the difficulty one experiences when attempting to name the physical color of a font when it is used to write the name of a different color. It has grown into more in depth research about fundamental cognitive processes since its origins in 1935. This study aims to report the impact of alcohol consumption on the Stroop Effect, hypothesizing that the consumption of alcohol will increase the Stroop Effect. Participants were given the Stroop Test, displayed digitally on a monitor, first in a sober state. Then, via blood alcohol concentration clamp, ethanol alcohol was administered until BAC reached 0.10% and the Stroop Test was given again in the same way. The results support the hypothesis, as it was found that the Stroop Effect increased by, on average, 2.09 seconds after the administration of alcohol. The results of this study are pertinent to public health and safety in the capacity of intoxicated driving. Limitations of this study include subject expectancy effect and the limited population the sample was pulled from. Future research can focus on the effects of varying levels of BAC on the Stroop Effect.

The Impact of Alcohol on the Stroop Effect The Stroop Effect is how processing a particular aspect of a certain stimulus impacts the processing of another, different aspect of the same stimulus (Scarpina & Tagini, 2017). The original study on what has come to be known as the Stroop Effect was published in 1935 by J. Ridley Stroop. Stroop was interested in the interference effect on reading reaction times; the interference being caused by the aforementioned different aspects of the same stimulus (Stroop, 1935). The foundation of Stroop’s study was measuring the time it took participants to read the names of colors printed in black and the time it took for those same participants to read the names of colors written in a different color then the one named (Stroop, 1935). The results of Stroop’s study found that, on average, the participants took 2.3 seconds longer to read the names of the colors printed in a different color then the color named; this means the Stroop Effect was measured to be an average of 2.3 seconds (Stroop, 1935). Although The Stroop Effect phenomenon was coined based off of Stroop’s research, the general idea of interference was studied well before 1935. Bowditch and Warren in 1890, Münsterberg in 1892, Müller and Schumann in 1894, and Hunter and Yarbrough in 1917 are a few that contributed to research on the topic of interference before J. Ridley Stroop. Specifically, Hunter and Yarbrough (1917) found that an existing habit interfered with an attempt at forming a new habit that is opposite of the existing one. With this well-established basis of early research, a large amount of further research has been done on interference, and specifically the Stroop Effect, since 1935. Studies done in the current millennium on the Stroop Effect include the effect of lunch consumption on performance in the Stroop test in high and low sociable individuals (Khanna et al. 2012), gender differences in performance on the Stroop test (Baroun & Alansari, 2006), and

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the difference in the Stroop effect between migraine patients and a healthy control group (Su et al., 2021). Research by Riedel et al., published in 2021, was focused on the “acute effects of alcohol on attentional inhibition” (p. 1593). Using an arterial blood alcohol concentration clamp, alcohol was administered to a level of 80 mg%. The results found that participants’ attentional inhibition, which is the ability to suppress interference from distracting stimuli, is not impaired by the alcohol exposure, however there was a general increase in response times (Riedel et al., 2021; Tiego et al., 2018). Furthermore, an additional report focused on the effects of alcohol on interference and reaction times by Devenney et al. in 2019 uses the emotional Stroop test to investigate the impact of a hangover from alcohol on emotional information processing. The emotional Stroop test consisted of physical and social threat words, as well as neutral, or non-threat, words. It was found that the participants’ response times were significantly slower when in a hangover state than in the control state, or non-hangover condition, for all three categories of words (Devenney et al., 2019). Lastly, research performed by John Curtin and Bradley Fairchild in 2003 focused on the traditional Stroop test of colors written in black text and colors written in a different colored text than the named color. The percentage of error in responses increased dramatically when alcohol consumption was introduced, specifically when the color written was incongruent with the color it was written in (Curtin & Fairchild, 2003). Precisely, the percentage of error with no alcohol consumption when the color word is incongruent with the color it was written in is around 4%, while it increases to about 7.5% after alcohol is consumed (Curtin & Fairchild, 2003). Also, participants’ response times, for the same word condition, were impacted by alcohol

consumption, however not at as high of a rate. Without alcohol, response times were about 700ms, and with alcohol consumption, response times increased to about 750ms (Curtin & Fairchild, 2003). These results relate back to the findings of the aforementioned research done by Riedel et al. (2021), especially in relation to response inhibition. Response inhibition is ones’ ability to stop a response. In the Riedel et al. (2021) research, it was suggested that alcohol negatively impacts response inhibition, meaning ones’ ability to stop a response decreases. Therefore, given the increased percent of error when alcohol was consumed in the Curtin & Fairchild (2003) research, it could be concluded that the inability of the intoxicated participant to stop the incorrect response (decreased ability in response inhibition) is the reason for the percentage of error increase reported. This report will present results of a study done on the effect of alcohol intake on participants’ Stroop effect. It is hypothesized that the consumption of alcohol will increase the Stroop effect. Methods Participants The age range of the 150 total participants was from 18 years old to 75 years old. The median age for females was 45, and the median age for males was 42, with an average age of both sexes combined equaling 44. The sampling method used was convenience sampling in the form of a social media ad targeted to people located within a 50-mile radius of central Baltimore County, MD. Once the ad was clicked on, four prompts were presented, including: 1. What is your zip code? 2. Are you willing to travel to a location disclosed once accepted to the study located in the 21152 zip code area? 3. Do you consent to alcohol consumption during this proposed study? And 4. Please provide your email address. If the respondent’s zip code was

outside of a 50-mile radius, they were not accepted into the study. If the respondent answered no to any or both of prompts two and three, they were not accepted into the study. Once a group of 150 men and 150 women meeting the requirements were found, they were contacted via the provided email address and asked to complete the provided Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). Only those participants that scored 7 and below were included in the study. This means that those with a score of 8 or higher, which indicates the participant has an alcohol use disorder, were not approved to complete the study. A total of 6 individuals opted out of the study once becoming informed the alcohol would be administered intravenously. At the end of the initial screening of 300 possible participants, 81 women and 69 men participated. Materials The AUDIT test form was provided by researchers, taken by participants, and returned to researchers using electronic methods (i.e., computers, smartphones, tablets, and email). All other information (i.e., prompt responses, demographic information, AUDIT scores), were logged in an electronic database. An arterial blood alcohol concentration clamp was used to administer ethanol alcohol to participants so that their blood alcohol content (BAC) remained at a steady 0.10%. The Stroop test was presented digitally from a laptop on a 55” monitor situated on a 30” tall desk. Participants were sat in a chair with the seat positioned 18” off the floor. A digital stopwatch was used to measure the time to a tenth of a second it took each participant to complete each task. Times were logged in an electronic data base for each participant. All aforementioned information that was digitally logged was done so by a third party, non-biased, and unaffiliated volunteer. Procedures

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Participants were first tested in a sober state with their BAC measuring below 0.01%. Each participant was positioned in the aforementioned chair 6’ 3” from the monitor. So as to mitigate the subject expectancy effect, the participants were hooked up to the arterial blood alcohol clamp for this control testing, but were administered saline. On the screen, subjects were shown 50 color words, consisting of green, yellow, red, and blue, written in black colored text, in 10 rows of 5, with no specific order to how the words were dispersed. They were then asked to read each word as quickly as possible. The time it took for each participant to complete this task, task one, was digitally documented. Subjects were then shown 50 color words, consisting of green, yellow, red, and blue. Each word was written in a color that was incongruent with the written word (i.e., yellow was written in green) in 10 rows of 5, with no specific order to how the words were dispersed. Participants had to say the color the word was written in, not the word that was written (i.e., if yellow was written in green, the participant should say green). The time it took for each participant to complete this task, task two, was digitally documented. The Stroop effect was then found for each participant by subtracting the time it took the participant to complete task one from the time it took for the participant to complete task two. So as to mitigate fatigue effect, participants were given the option to have a five-minute intermission before commencing the remainder of the study (tasks one and two in an altered state). Participants are then seated in the same chair, the same distance from the monitor, and again hooked up to the arterial blood alcohol concentration clamp. Ethanol alcohol was administered until the BAC reaches a level of 0.10%. This BAC, according to Ackermann at the American Addiction Centers (2023), causes reaction time and control to be reduced, speech to be slurred, thinking and reasoning to be slower, and the ability to coordinate your arms and legs to be poor. Once 0.10% BAC is attained, the procedure is repeated identically as described above

during the sober conditions. The Stroop effect was again found for each participant by subtracting the time it took the participant to complete task one from the time it took for the participant to complete task two and subsequently logged. The recorded data was analyzed using a paired samples t-test; the alpha level used to determine the significance of the difference between the means was 0.05. Results The mean for participants’ Stroop Effect in the control state was 4.49 seconds. The mean for participants’ Stroop Effect after alcohol was administered to a 0.10% BAC was 6.58 seconds. The standard deviation of participants’ Stroop Effect in the control state was 2.19 seconds, and in the altered state was 2.93 seconds. The standard error of the mean of participants’ Stroop Effect in the control state was 0.178 and in the altered state was 0.239. A summary of these results is seen in Table 1 below. The t value was found to be 17.39 with 149 degrees of freedom. The significance level was set at 0.05 and the p value was found to be less than 0.0001. The difference in means of participants in the controlled state versus the altered state was equal to 2.09 seconds. This is displayed in Figure 1 below. The 95% confidence interval for the difference of means is from 1.85 seconds to 2.33 seconds. Table 1 Statistics for Control and Treatment Groups Condition Mean Stroop Effect SD SEM Control State (Sober) 4.49 seconds 2.19 0.178 Altered State (Alcohol) 6.58 seconds 2.93 0.239

Figure 1 Difference of means from controlled and altered state Discussion As the results have shown, there is a significant increase in the Stroop Effect after participants were administered alcohol. The mean increase of the Stroop Effect from a controlled (sober) state to an altered (after administration of alcohol) state was 2.09 seconds. The 95% confidence interval of the difference of means for this study was found to be between 1.85 to 2.33. This means that 95% of the results of repeated samples from the overall population should lie between these values. Given the alpha level was set at 0.05 and the p value was less than 0.0001, the results of this study are statistically significant. Therefore, there is strong supporting evidence for the hypothesis of this study: the consumption of alcohol has been shown to increase the Stroop Effect. The results of this study do support previous research done in regard to the effects of alcohol on the Stroop Effect. In 2011, David et al., performed an experiment focused on how alcohol effects the time needed to complete the Stroop tasks and whether or not practice would reverse those effects. David et al. (2011) concluded that “alcohol increased the time needed for the Stroop matching task conflict resolution” (p. 279).

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The results of this study imply that stimuli processing time increase significantly when under the influence of alcohol. The results are also supportive of an increase in response time when intoxicated. Armed with this information, public health and safety authorities are able to provide evidence of the detrimental effects of alcohol when behind the wheel of a vehicle. This information can further propel stricter laws and repercussions when drivers are found to be driving under the influence. If a person under the influence of alcohol when participating in an activity that involves only a computer screen and themselves takes over 2 seconds more to complete a task, this delayed response to stimuli makes for greater danger on the roadways. It is well known to most how quickly accidents can happen. The extra two seconds it would take an impaired driver to respond to a child crossing the street in front of them by pressing the brake pedal could be the difference between life and death. Limitations Although participants of this study were screened for alcohol use disorders prior to participating in the study, other confounding factors may have been present. For one, the frequency at which each participant consumes alcohol on a regular basis was not determined. The more a person consumes alcohol, generally the higher their tolerance will be which could have impacted how much or how little the alcohol administered affected the participant. Also, it was not required for each participant to take a five-minute intermission after being tested in condition one and before being tested in condition two. Because of this, it is a possibility that participants’ performance was impacted differently based on whether or not they chose to take the intermission. Additionally, participants needed to be tested in a sober state first and because of this, subjects were most likely anticipating the alcohol administration for the second part of the study. This could have created a subject expectancy effect; meaning the subjects may have

expected that they would perform worse under the influence of alcohol and therefore did perform worse. Lastly, the sampling method being a social media ad limited participants being chosen only if they use social media, which excluded a significant portion of the population from being considered for the study. Future Research Additional research can be done to determine the severity at which alcohol impacts the Stroop Effect based on the BAC. Multiple conditions can be used, starting with a sober state and increasing BAC gradually higher. This would allow the measurement of increased reaction and processing time to be correlated with the amount of alcohol administered. Furthermore, future research could focus on the effects of “sobering up” on the Stroop Effect. Researchers could administer alcohol to a predetermined BAC and periodically administer the Stroop test over time as the effects of alcohol are diminishing.

References Ackermann, K. (2023, February 9). Blood alcohol concentration (BAC): BAC levels & effects . American Addiction Centers. https://alcohol.org/effects/blood-alcohol-concentration/ Baroun, K., & Alansari, B. (2006). Gender differences in performance on the Stroop test. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal , 34 (3), 309- 318. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2006.34.3.309 Bowditch, H. P., & Warren, J. W. (1890). The knee-jerk and its physiological modifications. The Journal of Physiology , 11 (1-2), 25-64. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.1890.sp000318 Curtin, J. J., & Fairchild, B. A. (2003). Alcohol and cognitive control: Implications for regulation of behavior during response conflict. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112(3), 424-436. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.112.3.424 David, I. A., Volchan, E., Alfradique, I., De Oliveira, L., Pereira, M. G., Ranvaud, R., Vila, J., & Machado-Pinheiro, W. (2011). Dynamics of a Stroop matching task: Effect of alcohol and reversal with training. Psychology & Neuroscience, 4(2), 279-283. https://doi.org/10.3922/j.psns.2011.2.013 Devenney, L. E., Coyle, K. B., & Verster, J. C. (2019). Emotional information processing during alcohol hangover [Poster session]. Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs. Hunter, W. S., & Yarbrough, J. U. (n.d.). The interference of auditory habits in the white rat. Journal of Animal Behavior , 7 (1), 49-65. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1926-01266- 001 Khanna, N., & Gupta, S. (2012). Effect of lunch on stroop test performance in high and low sociable individuals. Journal of Psychosocial Research , 7 (1), 127-

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138. http://ezproxy.umgc.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2012-17454-016&site=eds-live&scope=site Muller, G. E., & Schumann, F. (1894). Experimentelle beiträge zur untersuchung des gedächtnisses. Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane , 6 , 81- 190. http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/MPIWG:HSY6FNXM Munsterberg, H. (1892). Gedächtnisstudien. Beiträge zur Experimentellen Psychologie , 4 , 70. Riedel, P., Wolff, M., Spreer, M., Petzold, J., Plawecki, M. H., Goschke, T., Zimmermann, U. S., & Smolka, M. N. (2021). Acute alcohol does not impair attentional inhibition as measured with Stroop interference scores but impairs Stroop performance. Psychopharmacology , 238 (6), 1593-1607. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213- 021-05792-0 Scarpina, F., & Tagini, S. (2017). The Stroop color and word test. Frontiers in Psychology , 8 , 557. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00557 Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 18 (6), 643-662. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054651 Su, M., Wang, R., Dong, Z., Zhao, D., & Yu, S. (2021). Decline in attentional inhibition among migraine patients: An event‐related potential study using the Stroop task. The Journal of Headache and Pain , 22 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s10194-021-01242-6 Tiego, J., Testa, R., Bellgrove, M. A., Pantelis, C., & Whittle, S. (2018). A hierarchical model of inhibitory control. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 1339. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01339

The Impact of Alcohol on the Stroop Effect

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