Perception,Learning,and Emotion: The Role of Alcohol

Abstract

A good deal is already known about the effects of alcohol on spe cific psychological functions such as perception, memory, judgment, learning ability, and certain emotions. We are also beginning to understand something of how the effect of alcohol on an individual's need-patterns may lead to con tinued drinking, and, further, how alcohol can give rise to quite different pat terns of behavior in different individuals or in the same individual at different times. Much remains to be learned, however, about the specific ways in which the need-patterns of normal drinkers and nondrinkers differ from those of addictive drinkers.