Is event frequency encoded automatically? The case of alcohol intoxication.

The four experiments reported show that sensitivity to event frequency is diminished by alcohol intoxication. In two experiments on confusion between presented and generated words, the function relating estimated to actual frequency was steeper for sober than intoxicated subjects. In two experiments on word-frequency estimates after a word-pronunciation task, the influence of alcohol intoxication was identified at the input as opposed to the test stage. We conclude that these findings are inconsistent with the idea that frequency-of-occurrence information is automatically encoded.