Methodological considerations in alcohol research with human subjects

Although the methodology of alcohol experiments with humans has improved substantially in the last decade, several important variables are still often ignored or uncontrolled in this research. This paper is an examination of the way (a) subject characteristics, (b) variables which affect the blood alcohol level function, and (c) time of assessment of dependent variables can influence the results of experiments on the effects of alcohol. Studies reported in the literature are described to illustrate the effect of each variable, and how failure to control for the effects of these variables can make findings difficult to interpret.