The influence of alcohol intake and alcohol expectations on the recognition of emotions.

Aims: To investigate the effects of actual and expected alcohol intake on the detection and interpretation of the basic emotions happiness and anger in facial expressions.

Methods: n = 102 healthy participants performed a dynamic emotion recognition task before and after receiving a drink which contained either a moderate alcohol dose or no alcohol in a double-blind design.

Results: The actual alcohol intake had no effect on detecting and interpreting facial expressions.