Interference effects in chronic alcoholism.

This study investigated underlying mechanisms of the verbal memory disorder associated with chronic alcoholism. Previous investigations have suggested that alcoholics are more vulnerable to interference effects on verbal learning and memory tasks, both with respect to retroactive interference (RI) and proactive interference (PI); this was the hypothesis of the current study. Measures of RI and build-up and release from PI were administered to 31 abstinent male chronic alcoholics and 24 healthy male nonalcoholic control subjects.

Visual hierarchical analysis of Block Design configural errors.

Patients have been frequently observed to violate the overall configuration on the WAIS-R Block Design subtest. The significance of these configural errors was investigated with hierarchical patterns consisting of large "global" shapes made from smaller "local" shapes. Subjects were administered two similarity judgment tasks in which they were asked to decide which of two hierarchically structured comparison figures most resembled a standard figure.

The premature aging hypothesis: old before its time?

This study tested the hypothesis that alcoholism results in premature aging of memory functioning. It was proposed that support for the premature aging hypothesis must come from qualitative as well as quantitative similarities between younger alcoholics and older controls. The California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) was administered to young and old alcoholics and to young and old controls.

Effects of chronic alcoholism on perception of hierarchical visual stimuli.

Visuospatial processing in chronic alcoholism was investigated by asking subjects to make similarity judgements of hierarchically constructed visual stimuli. Comparison figures were similar to a standard figure at the global or local level. Alcoholics were less influenced by the global patterns in their similarity judgements than were controls.

Neuropsychological correlates of chronic alcoholism and aging.

Independent investigations of alcoholism and aging have demonstrated significant parallels between the two phenomena suggesting the possibility of "premature aging" as a result of alcoholism. To test this hypothesis a cross-sectional design was utilized with three groups of 20 male subjects: young normal (mean age 31 years), young alcoholics (mean age 33 years), and elderly normal (mean age 71 years). Eleven objective measures, selected from a battery of sensory and perceptual motor tests routinely used to evaluate cerebral dysfunction in hospitalized patients, were compared for the three groups.

WAIS performance in young normal, young alcoholic, and elderly normal groups: an evaluation of organicity and mental aging indices.

Investigated the effects of alcoholism and advanced age on Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) performance and tested the validity of indices of "organicity" and "mental aging" derived from WAIS scores. The WAIS was administered to three groups of 20 males each: young normal (mean age 31 years), young alcoholic (mean age 33 years), and elderly normal (mean age 71 years. In terms of scaled scores, the young normal group was generally superior to the other groups on Verbal and Performance subtests, and the alcoholic and elderly groups resembled each other more on the Verbal than the Performance subtests.