Specifying the relationship between alcohol use and cognitive loss: the effects of frequency of consumption and psychological distress.

Previous research has found a relationship between increased quantity of alcohol usually consumed per drinking occasion and decreased sober cognitive performance. It has been suggested that the effects of quantity of alcohol consumed may be conditional upon the frequency of alcohol use and that decreased performance in social drinkers may be a consequence of psychological distress (i.e., anxiety and depression). An analysis of data from a representative sample of employed men and women in metropolitan Detroit indicates that the relation between quantity of alcohol consumed per occasion and abstraction performance is conditional upon the frequency of alcohol use but that the relationship cannot be accounted for by psychological distress.