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Updated: Apr 20, 2026

Disruption of Frontal Lobe Neural Synchrony During Cognitive Control by Alcohol Intoxication
Published on: February 6, 2019
In vino veritas? Alcohol, response inhibition and lying
Kristina Suchotzki1, Geert Crombez2, Evelyne Debey2
1Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium kristina.suchotzki@ugent.be.
Aims:
Despite the widespread belief that alcohol makes the truth come out more easily, we know very little on how alcohol impacts deception. Given that alcohol impairs response inhibition, and that response inhibition may be critically involved in deception, we expected that alcohol intake would hamper lying.
Methods:
In total, 104 volunteers were tested at a science festival, where they had the opportunity to drink alcohol. Stop-Signal Reaction Times (SSRTs) served as operationalization of response inhibition. Differences in error rates and reaction times (RTs) between lying and truth telling served as indicators of the cognitive cost of lying.
Results:
Higher blood alcohol concentration was related to longer SSRTs, but unrelated to the cognitive costs of lying.
Conclusion:
This study validates previous laboratory research on alcohol and response inhibition in a realistic drinking environment, yet failed to find an effect of alcohol on lying. Implications of these findings and for the role of response inhibition in lying are discussed.
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