ATTENTION ALLOCATION - EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL AND INFORMATION SALIENCE ONATTENTIONAL PROCESSES IN MALE SOCIAL DRINKERS

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects of al cohol and salience of social cues (personality traits) on allocation o f attention in the intoxicated male social drinker. It was expected th at inebriated subjects would preferentially attend to high threat rela tive to low threat information contingent on the information's persona l relevance. Seventy-six participants received either alcohol or a pla cebo, or were in a control condition, and were given the opportunity t o attend to personally salient or nonsalient positive, negative, and n eutral information. Intoxicated participants viewed negative traits lo nger than did nonintoxicated subjects and attended to these traits lon ger in the salient than in the nonsalient condition. Findings are comp ared to the attention allocation model, and their implications for alc ohol-mediated cognitive processes are discussed.