“Creativity on Tap 2: Investigating Dose Effects of Alcohol on Cognitive Control and Creative Cognition”, 2020-08-01 (; backlinks; similar):
Randomized controlled trial on the role of cognitive control in creative cognition.
Dose effects of alcohol (BAC = 0.0, 0.03, and 0.06) were examined.
BAC of 0.06 impaired verbal fluency but not working memory performance.
Participants expected minor positive effects of alcohol on divergent thinking (DT).
No alcohol effects on creative cognition (RAT and DT) were observed.
This preregistered study aimed to replicate and extend research on the role of cognitive control in creative cognition by examining dose effects of alcohol in a randomized controlled trial.
A sample of 125 participants was randomly assigned to 3 experimental groups, either drinking alcoholic beer (BAC = 0.03 or 0.06) or drinking non-alcoholic beer (placebo-control group). Before and after the alcohol intervention, participants completed 2 tests of cognitive control and 2 established creative thinking tasks.
A BAC of 0.06 led to an impairment of verbal fluency, while working memory performance was unaffected at both alcohol levels. Alcohol had no facilitative or detrimental effects on creative thinking performance, neither in terms of RAT performance, divergent thinking fluency or divergent thinking creativity.
These results indicate that moderate alcohol levels have dose-dependent, selective effects on cognitive control, and that minor impairments of cognitive control do not generally increase or attenuate creative thinking performance.
[Keywords: creativity, creative cognition, executive control, alcohol]