Can the Mere Sight of Alcohol Affect Your Memory?

Quickly read this subject line of an email I once received. What pops into your head?

“Weekly webinar this Tuesday”

Here’s what I saw: “Weekly winebar this Tuesday”

Winebar? Yesiree. Sign. Me. Up. Finally, an exciting work email.  This occurred during COVID times and wine was on my mind, well, not infrequently. So, my error did worry me a little. Was my brain fine-tuned to notice things related to alcohol?

Science Weighs In

I was reminded of this experience when I came across a study recently. Researchers tested heavier and lighter drinkers to see if the mere sight of alcohol affected their memory.

College students made up the sample. And to anticipate your question, no, they weren’t intoxicated during the experiment. But, on average, the heavier drinkers drank more than the light drinkers.

Participants viewed pictures of 15 different objects, such as an umbrella and a football. Then, after five minutes, they recalled as many as they could. The key trial was the eighth item. Researchers did the old switcharoo for half the students in each drinking group. Some saw a bottle of Jack Daniels. The others saw Pepsi.

Two findings emerged. First, for high drinkers (I call them the fun group), memory was better for Jack Daniels than Pepsi. The low drinkers showed no difference. Second, the high drinkers who viewed Jack Daniels in position 8 were less likely to remember the pictures that came right after it, in spots 9 through 11. This didn’t happen for the low drinkers.

So, for high drinkers, just seeing alcohol had an effect: better memory for the booze, but amnesia for whatever came after it.

These results are explained by a type of bias called attention narrowing. This happens when an emotional or important stimulus captures our attention, so we remember it better, but we don’t encode things after it. The study’s authors found the same pattern in a study with a nudie picture as the salient image.

Maybe this bias isn’t a bad thing? At least you could spot your desired beverage faster in the grocery store, right? Well, true, but there’s a downside. It can lead to more drinking, and even addiction.

And I didn’t mention an important fact. Attentional bias is “automatic.” That means it’s outside of awareness and hard to control. So, you couldn’t just tell yourself, “Don’t focus on the delicious Jack Daniels!”

Now, that study was from 2007, so I was curious if it’d been replicated.

Lo and behold, the findings were replicated. A 2024 study used eye-tracking to see what heavier drinkers paid attention to. Participants saw a bunch of pairs of objects. And again, the big drinkers showed more bias for boozy images. Their eyes were drawn to the glass of wine, for instance, rather than the vase.

So, the mere sight of alcohol impacts your memory—but only if you regularly imbibe.

It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere (in my body)

The news gets worse for women. They have an additional attentional bias to alcohol. But only at a certain time. And, no, it’s not when the kids get home from school. (Well, maybe then, too.)

It happens when women are ovulating. Images related to adult beverages are more rewarding then. Experts suggest it’s because of increased levels of an estrogen hormone (E2) coursing through their veins.

Practical Applications

Do these findings have real-world benefits? Yes. Measuring attentional bias can help gauge progress in addiction recovery because the attentional pull can show the degree of substance dependence. For example, people with less bias show less relapsing.

Are there other applications? I thought of a few.

Using the Findings for Good

Apply this when memorizing things. Incorporate the stuff you want to remember into your desired stimulus (wine glass, nude image—whatever floats your boat).

Take a beat after the exciting thing you saw. You won’t forget images that follow an enticing image if you take a 10-second break after viewing it.

Plan the lineup on your grocery list as carefully as an MLB lineup. If you like the drinkie-drink, know that items after your booze are more likely to be forgotten. So, don’t stick the “must gets” there, like toilet paper.

Using the Findings for Evil

If you rob a bank, wear a shirt with a distracting image on it—say a nude photo or image of hooch. (Or maybe don’t rob a bank.)

Should I Be Worried About My Perceptual Error?

Okay, full disclosure. That time I misread “webinar” as “winebar” wasn’t a one-time deal. It was five. But, I’m not worried. That’s partly because I don’t drink that much and partly because I wasn’t wearing reading glasses, so I blame my presbyopia (old person eyes).

I’ll sign off now because I just got a pop-up ad for Drinkin’ Donuts. That sounds like an excellent product.