Studies have been completed on decision-making and reduced working memory capacity in individuals with alcohol use disorders. Working memory is a person’s attentional control capacity. This is important to the deliberation process involved in adaptive decision-making. This study looks at the impact of working memory on drinking-related decisions in young adults. There were 821 young adult participants with 558 of them having an alcohol use disorder.
To help standardize the study, each participant had to have a 0.0% breathalyzer alcohol lever, 6 hours of sleep, eaten within the previous 3 hours, and not taken or used any illicit drugs in the past 12 hours. The participants were asked about lifetime alcohol, antisocial behavior problems, and about alcohol use disorders. To learn about drinking decision tasks, the participants were put through scenarios on a computer to learn about decision making and working memory loads. The data shows that alcohol party incentives increased attendance as expected along with those with long term alcohol problems also more likely to attend. They found that working memory load increased participants likelihood of deciding to attend higher risk party events. What this means is that participants neglected to consider the severe, delayed consequences of this high risk party.
The researchers found that consumption of alcohol increased as the alcohol incentives increased along with working memory load further increased consumption decisions. Overall, this study shows that working memory load can be a proxy for effects of situation conditions including things like stress and emotional arousal. This is saying that these circumstances may increase risk and heavy drinking. While there needs to be more research completed on working memory load, this study does provide some insight into how stress and emotional arousal may affect young adults risky drinking decisions.
Take Away: This study looks at how a person’s working memory may impact drinking-related decision in young adults. 821 young adults were asked questions about lifetime alcohol, antisocial behavior problems, and about alcohol use disorders. The participants were then put through a computer based simulation to help learn about their decisions surrounding risky drinking. What they found was that working memory load was a potential proxy for effects of situation conditions including stress and emotional arousal. So, these circumstances may increase risky and heavy drinking in young adults.