Unique effects of sedatives, dissociatives, psychedelics, stimulants, and cannabinoids on episodic memory: A review and reanalysis of acute drug effects on recollection, familiarity, and metamemory.
Psychological review March 1, 2024 Manoj K Doss, Jason Samaha, Frederick S Barrett et al. 24 citations
Psychoactive drugs produce unique subjective states, but their effects on episodic memory often overlap. This reanalysis of 10 data sets (28 drug conditions) used signal detection models to separate three memory processes: recollection (retrieving specific details), familiarity (recognizing without details), and metamemory (introspecting about memory accuracy). Sedatives impaired both recollection and familiarity during encoding but enhanced recollection during consolidation. Dissociatives and cannabinoids impaired recollection during encoding, and cannabinoids increased false recollections during retrieval. Psychedelics impaired recollection during encoding but tended to enhance familiarity. Stimulants enhanced metamemory during encoding and retrieval but impaired metamemory during consolidation. These distinct patterns help explain drug-specific phenomena like sedative-induced blackouts and psychedelic presque vu, and suggest that memory quantity and stability influence metamemory.