THE EFFECT OF DRINK FAMILIARITY ON TOLERANCE TO ALCOHOL

Cues associated with familiar alcoholic drinks such as beer may, throu gh repeated association with the unconditioned stimulus properties of alcohol, acquire the status of classically conditioned stimuli. It has been proposed that such drug-related conditioned stimuli mediate drug tolerance. Thus, the aim of the present experiment was to test this p roposition on cognitive, subjective, and psychophysiological indicator s of alcohol tolerance using human subjects. Two groups of subjects re ceived alcohol in the form of a familiar drink (beer) or an unfamiliar drink (blue peppermint mixture). Both drinks contained the same dose of alcohol and were consumed at the same rate. Although conditioned he art rate and skin conductance responses occurring while subjects looke d at and tasted the test drinks were weak, there were strong indicator s of conditioned tolerance on the performance measures following consu mption. Subjects who consumed the unfamiliar drink were significantly poorer on cognitive and motor tasks, and they rated themselves more in toxicated than did those who consumed the familiar drink. Copyright (C ) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd