Alcohol placebos can also impair your memory and judgment

It’s common knowledge that drinking alcohol can impair your memory but what about simply suggesting that you’ve drunk alcohol?

Turns out, alcohol placebos can also impair your memory and judgment:

Subjects drank plain tonic water, but half were told it was a vodka and tonic; then all subjects took part in an eyewitness memory experiment.

Subjects who were told they drank alcohol were more swayed by misleading postevent information than were those who were told they drank tonic water, and were also more confident about the accuracy of their responses.

Our results show that the mere suggestion of alcohol consumption may make subjects more susceptible to misleading information and inappropriately confident. These results also provide additional confirmation that eyewitness memory is influenced by both nonsocial and social factors.

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