On the psychology of drinking: Being thirsty and perceptually ready

The present research is concerned with cognitive effects of habitually regu lated primary motives. Specifically, two experiments tested the idea that f eelings of thirst enhance the cognitive accessibility of, or readiness to p erceive, action-relevant stimuli. In a task allegedly designed to assess mo uth-detection skills, some participants were made to feel thirsty, whereas others were not. Results showed that participants who were made thirsty res ponded faster to drinking-related items in a lexical decision task, and per formed better on an incidental recall task of drinking-related items, relat ive to no-thirst control participants. These results suggest that basic nee ds and motives, such as thirst, causes a heightened perceptual readiness to environmental cues that are instrumental in satisfying these needs.