Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31637945›Full record

Trial reportJournal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)2020

Alcohol myopia and the distracting effects of hair in face recognition.

Alistair J Harvey, Danny A Tomlinson

Abstract readClinical Trial
In one paragraph

Trial report in Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Impaired face symmetry detection under alcohol, but no 'beer goggles' effect.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2024
    Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Alistair J HarveyDepartment of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-4329-489X
Danny A TomlinsonDepartment of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundAccording to alcohol myopia theory, alcohol reduces cognitive resources and restricts the drinker's attention to only the more prominent aspects of a visual scene. As human hairstyles are often salient and serve as important facial recognition cues, we consider whether alcohol restricts attention to this region of faces upon initial viewing.

aimsParticipants with higher breath alcohol concentrations just prior to encoding a series of unfamiliar faces were expected to be poorer than more sober counterparts at recognising the internal but not external features of those faces at test.

methodsDrinkers in a nearby bar (

resultsAs predicted, higher breath concentrations were associated with poorer discrimination of internal but not external face regions.

conclusionsOur findings suggest that alcohol restricts unfamiliar face encoding by narrowing the scope of attention to the exterior region of unfamiliar faces. This has important implications for drunk eyewitness accuracy, though further investigation is needed to see if the effect is mediated by gender, hair length and face feature distinctiveness.

Indexed as

HairAdolescentAlcoholic IntoxicationAttentionBreath TestsEthanolFacial RecognitionFemaleHumansMalePhotic StimulationYoung AdultEthanolAlcohol intoxicationalcohol myopiaeyewitness memoryface recognition

Identifiers

PMID31637945
PMCPMC6990456

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.