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Chronic Alcoholism in Males: Cognitive Deficit as a Function of Age of Onset, Age, and Duration
Author(s) -
Pishkin Vladimir,
Lovallo William R.,
Bourne Lyle E.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1985.tb05571.x
Subject(s) - cognition , audiology , psychology , age of onset , stimulus (psychology) , cognitive impairment , cognitive deficit , pediatrics , clinical psychology , medicine , psychiatry , disease , cognitive psychology
Performance on a cognitive rule‐teaming task was studied in detoxified alcohofics having earty/late onset and short‐/long‐tenn drinking histories, and in matched nonalcoholic controls. There were pronounced cognitive deficits in earty onset and long‐term alcoholics. Impairment was severest in the earty onset group, even though they were on the average 15 years younger than the tote onset group. Earty onset alcoholics were reiativety more impaired on both the abstract and the verbal Shipley measures. This group also manifested a relative deficit in ability to show positive transfer across problems. Chronicity of alcoholism also interfered with acquisition of an abstract relationship between concrete stimulus attributes. Age negatively influenced ability to perform abstractions, but not commonly tested verbal skills. The findings suggest that an earty onset of alcoholism, regardless of duration of problem drinking, is particularly predictive of cognitive impairment