Recognition memory and psychophysiological responses to stimuli with neutral or emotional content: A study of korsakoff patients and recently detoxified and longterm abstinent alcoholics

Abstract

Possible relations between chronic alcohol abuse and impairments in cognitive functioning were tested in six groups of subjects, groups A₁, A₂, CG_y, AA, KO, and CG_o: The first three groups were about 35 years old, the last three about 50 years. Groups A₁ and A₂ each consisted of ten men hospitalized for the treatment of alcohol dependency, group A₁ having been detoxified for less than one week, and group A₂ for more than five months. Group CG_y constituted the matched control group. Group AA consisted of six Alcoholics Anonymous, sober for more than five years, nine Korsakoff patients made up group KO, and group CG_o was the control group matched for groups AA and KO. As the main tests, all subjects were given a number of slides showing scenes, humans, or animals, half of which had been rated as neutral while the other half was emotionally arousing (in either a negative or a positive way). In two tests, one after ten minutes, and one after two days, the subjects were required to reidentify those slides which they had seen before, and their galvanic skin response was measured simultaneously. Several psychological tests including one for paired associate learning were given as well. The main results were that alcoholics, whether they had been abstinent for a longer time or not, were inferior to nonalcoholics, but that a prolonged period of soberness nevertheless most likely leads to the recovery of cognitive functions. Though the underlying causes of the cognitive deficits found in the four experimental groups (A₁, A₂, AA, KO) may be due at least in part to different or even contradictory underlying causes, they provide support for “simple versions” of the so-called continuity and premature aging hypotheses.