Marijuana effects on associative processes.

Acute marijuana effects on associative processes involved in long-term memory retrieval were studied. Results were partially consistent with expectations based on previous subjective reports that marijuana promotes more uncommon associations. Marijuana altered responses when people gave as many examples of a specified category (e.g., CLOTHING) as they could for 2 min, and when they gave an example of a specified category beginning with a specified letter (e.g., WEAPON - G). Reaction time in the latter task and in prior studies was not altered in the expected manner, a finding problematic for some theoretic interpretations of marijuana's effects on associative processes.