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Study finds that alcohol doesn't impair our ability to control our actions, such as sending drunk texts, but instead makes us care less about the consequences

It may be easy to blame your drunk behaviour, phone calls and texts on the alcohol, but a study has found this may no longer be a valid excuse.

Researchers asked participants to drink alcohol before completing error recognition tasks on a computer.

They measured their responses using brain patterns and self-reporting.

Those who drank alcohol were as aware as a placebo and sober group that they were making a mistake, but the research discovered that they cared less.

This suggests that alcohol doesn't inhibit our ability to know what we're doing, but instead it inhibits our inability to feel guilt, remorse or shame about it.

Additionally, it suggests drink makes people more honest and less likely to hold back out of fear of the consequences.

Researchers from the University of Missouri, led by Professor Bruce Bartholow, split 67 participants into three groups.

One group of 22 - 11 women and 11 men - were given a soft drink, a second group of 11 men and 11 women were given a placebo drink, while the remaining 23, made up of 12 men and 11 women, were given vodka and tonic.

Each group was then asked to complete an error recognition task.

This task involved first recognising whether a face was black or white, and then whether an image presented was a gun or a pair of pliers.

They measured error-related negativity (ERN), a component of the event-related brain potential (ERP).

This is a brain response that is direct result of a specific sensory event, which in this case was a warning that the participant had made a mistake.

Participants were also asked to self-report on their errors.

The scientists noted that when making a mistake, people typically will answer more slowly next time to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Researchers asked participants to drink alcohol before completing error recognition tasks on a computer. There was also a sober group, and a placebo group. All three groups were aware when they made a mistake, but the alcohol group were less concerned about this error

According to the readings and self-reports, all three groups were aware when they made a mistake.

But the alcohol group were less concerned about this error and answered just as quickly throughout.

Professor Bartholow continued: 'In tasks like the one we used, although we encourage people to try to respond as quickly as possible, it is very common for people to respond more slowly following an error, as a way of trying to regain self-control. 

'That's what we saw in our placebo group. The alcohol group participants didn't do this,' Bartholow said.

'These findings suggest that alcohol might limit awareness of errors at an immediate, automatic level, but that subsequent processes leading to recognition, perhaps associated with the further reflection on the response outcome, are not impaired by alcohol,' said the researchers.

The paper is titled Alcohol Effects on Performance Monitoring and Adjustment: Affect Modulation and Impairment of Evaluative Cognitive Control.