Addictive Substance Familiarity: Prior Knowledge Effects in Comprehension and Recall

Multiple regression techniques were used to examine whether indices of addictive substance familiarity, recreational usage, and exposure are related to reading times of sentences involving different types of drug schema-relevant information. In a self-paced task, undergraduates at a private, Midwestern university read narratives involving the use of different addictive substances. Additionally, participants completed two surveys to assess addictive substance familiarity, recreational exposure, and usage. For all participants, slower reading times were associated with auxiliary predictor variables (i.e., serial position, mean word frequency, and number of syllables). Prior knowledge about addictive substances predicted faster reading times for sentences involving the negative consequences of drug use. Participants with higher levels of prior knowledge were also more likely to fail to recall narratives involving the addictive substance with which they were familiar. The role of prior knowledge as measured by sentence reading time and narrative recall is discussed.