In the present study, moderate alcohol intoxication reduced event-related theta overall, starting with the visual sensory processing estimated to the occipital cortex. However, it is particularly deleterious to semantic processing, given that theta power was reduced to SW while the theta elicited by PW was unchanged. Therefore, it appears that alcohol impairs matching of semantic representations with word stimuli, but not the orthographic, phonological, phonotactic, or other aspects of evaluation that are involved in PW processing. This finding is broadly consistent with behavioral studies reporting alcohol-induced impairments of semantic memory (Maylor et al., 1990; Acheson et al., 1998). It holds promise for using lexical decision task to investigate semantic retrieval in patient populations or under other pharmacological manipulations.
