Trial reportExperimental and clinical psychopharmacology2012
Alternative substance paradigm: effectiveness of beverage blinding and effects on acute alcohol responses.
Trial report in Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Moderate alcohol consumption and lipoprotein subfractions: a systematic review of intervention and observational studies.Nutrition reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Across the spectrum: Acute alcohol responses in young adults with mild, moderate, and severe alcohol use disorder.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Relationships between generalized impulsivity and subjective stimulant and sedative responses following alcohol administration.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2019Trial
- Association of Anticipated and Laboratory-Derived Alcohol Stimulation, Sedation, and Reward.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2017Trial
- Alcohol-induced performance impairment: a 5-year re-examination study in heavy and light drinkers.Psychopharmacology · 2017Trial
- A Prospective 5-Year Re-examination of Alcohol Response in Heavy Drinkers Progressing in Alcohol Use Disorder.Biological psychiatry · 2016Trial
- Alcohol challenge responses predict future alcohol use disorder symptoms: a 6-year prospective study.Biological psychiatry · 2014Trial
- Acute alcohol response phenotype in heavy social drinkers is robust and reproducible.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2014Trial
- Alcohol attenuates amygdala-frontal connectivity during processing social signals in heavy social drinkers: a preliminary pharmaco-fMRI study.Psychopharmacology · 2013Trial
- Validation of the brief Biphasic Alcohol Effects Scale (B-BAES).Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2013Trial
- Testing neurobiological models of reward/incentive sensitization in the continuation of alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms in young adults with AUD: A four-year longitudinal study.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Relationship between biological sex and the endocrine stress response following a binge-like dose of alcohol.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Article
- The eyes have it: Alcohol-induced eye movement impairment and perceived impairment in older adults with and without alcohol use disorder.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Article
- Haven't lost the positive feeling: a dose-response, oral alcohol challenge study in drinkers with alcohol use disorder.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Article
- Subjective Responses to Alcohol in the Development and Maintenance of Alcohol Use Disorder.The American journal of psychiatry · 2021Article
- The Feasibility, Tolerability, and Safety of Administering a Very High Alcohol Dose to Drinkers with Alcohol Use Disorder.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2020Article
- To Infuse or Ingest in Human Laboratory Alcohol Research.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2020Review
- Striatal activity correlates with stimulant-like effects of alcohol in healthy volunteers.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2018Article
- Pairing neutral cues with alcohol intoxication: new findings in executive and attention networks.Psychopharmacology · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
A fundamental goal of double-blind alcohol challenge studies is to reduce alcohol expectancies, though there is little research on the effectiveness of blinding procedures and their relationship to acute alcohol responses. This study examined social drinkers' perception of beverage content and related alcohol response during 3 separate double-blind experimental sessions with placebo, low-dose alcohol (0.4 g/kg), and high-dose alcohol (0.8 g/kg). Using the alternative substance paradigm, participants (N = 182) were informed that the beverage they consumed might contain alcohol, a stimulant, a sedative, or a placebo. At several time points, subjective and objective measures were obtained, and participants were asked to identify which substance they received. During both placebo and low-dose alcohol sessions, 33% and 50% of participants, respectively, did not correctly identify the beverage content; during the high-dose alcohol session, 20% did not correctly identify the beverage. Although correct and incorrect identifiers at any dose level did not differ on major background variables, drinking characteristics, or psychomotor performance during these sessions, they did differ on self-reported subjective responses, with greater sedation reported by incorrect identifiers in the placebo and high-dose conditions. In summary, results suggest that the alternative substance paradigm may be a viable option for alcohol laboratory studies, particularly for repeated sessions in within-subject designs and in cases in which the experimenter wants to reduce expectancy by not revealing a priori that alcohol is being administered.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.