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The Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Accuracy and the Confidence–Accuracy Relationship in Photographic Simultaneous Line‐ups
Author(s) -
Flowe Heather D.,
Colloff Melissa F.,
Karoğlu Nilda,
Zelek Katarzyna,
Ryder Hannah,
Humphries Joyce E.,
Takarangi Melanie K.T.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3332
Subject(s) - psychology , alcohol , expectancy theory , tonic (physiology) , confidence interval , alcohol intoxication , alcohol consumption , poison control , cognition , injury prevention , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , social psychology , psychiatry , medicine , medical emergency , chemistry , biochemistry , neuroscience
Summary Acute alcohol intoxication during encoding can impair subsequent identification accuracy, but results across studies have been inconsistent, with studies often finding no effect. Little is also known about how alcohol intoxication affects the identification confidence–accuracy relationship. We randomly assigned women ( N = 153) to consume alcohol (dosed to achieve a 0.08% blood alcohol content) or tonic water, controlling for alcohol expectancy. Women then participated in an interactive hypothetical sexual assault scenario and, 24 hours or 7 days later, attempted to identify the assailant from a perpetrator present or a perpetrator absent simultaneous line‐up and reported their decision confidence. Overall, levels of identification accuracy were similar across the alcohol and tonic water groups. However, women who had consumed tonic water as opposed to alcohol identified the assailant with higher confidence on average. Further, calibration analyses suggested that confidence is predictive of accuracy regardless of alcohol consumption. The theoretical and applied implications of our results are discussed.© 2017 The Authors Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.