| The goal of the present study was to examine impairment and recovery of relatively simple, automatic aspects of memory processing from the insult engendered by alcohol abuse. A continuous recognition test of words and faces was repeatedly administered to three groups of alcoholics after 5, 15, and 25 days of sobriety, respectively. Non-alcoholic controls were tested once. Results indicated no impairment of word or face recognition, even after only five days of sobriety, and no significant improvement as a function of length of abstinence from alcohol. Repeating the test, which had the consequence of complicating task demands by requiring that subjects determine not only if but when a stimulus was experienced, led to improved face recognition but decrements in word performance. This phenomenon was viewed as reflecting the relative ease with which subjects temporally placed the novel face stimuli, as compared to the difficulty placing words that were potentially experienced both in and outside the experimental context. Age, IQ, and years of abusive drinking were related to recognition such that younger, brighter individuals with shorter drinking histories showed a performance advantage. In general, results agreed with the notion that while simple skills are spared from disruption by alcohol abuse, impairments are evident on more complex tasks requiring integration of temporal input. |
