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Bluntly Speaking: The Influence of Cannabis on Thought Content and Dynamics

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Jen Burrell¹ (), Alina Buschhueter², Hamidreza Jamalabadi², Kalina Christoff¹; ¹University of British Columbia, ²Philipps-Universität Marburg

Nearly one-third of Canadians used cannabis in 2024, with 48% of young adults aged 20-24 reporting having tried cannabis in the previous year (Canadian Cannabis Survey 2024, 2024). The frequent use of recreational cannabis highlights the importance of understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying cannabis use. To date, cannabis research has largely focused on its adverse effects on executive functioning and memory. However, no research has directly examined the conscious experience of cannabis intoxication. In other words, we lack a basic scientific understanding of the altered state of consciousness engendered by cannabis consumption. To investigate the alterations in conscious experience elicited by cannabis, we measured the dynamics of participants’ thought streams during the Think Aloud paradigm (Raffaelli et al., 2021), in which participants were audio-recorded as they spoke aloud the contents of their conscious experience for 12 minutes. Participants identified as regular cannabis users, having used cannabis at least once a month over the prior three months, completed two 60-minute remote experimental sessions following the Naturalistic Cannabis Administration Protocol (St. Pierre et al., 2022), one sober and one immediately following the inhalation of cannabis. Using dynamical system modelling and semantic network analysis, along with experience sampling, we investigated alterations in thought content, valence, and temporality, which enable us to understand the changes occurring in the stream of thought due to cannabis. These findings begin to elucidate how cannabis acutely alters the way people think.

Topic Area: THINKING: Other