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Effects of Cues on Memory in Alcoholics and Controls
Author(s) -
Nixon S. J.,
Tivis R. D.,
Jenkins M. R.,
Parsons O. A.
Publication year - 1998
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.1530-0277.1998.tb03700.x
Subject(s) - psychology , trigram , recall , cued recall , audiology , cued speech , contrast (vision) , adjective check list , free recall , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , personality , medicine , speech recognition , artificial intelligence , computer science
This study was conducted to determine whether alcoholics' memory difficulties are due, in part, to access (retrieval) or to availability (retention) deficits. Forty‐four alcoholics ( n =20 females) and 44 controls ( n =22 females) learned a paired associate list consisting of 12 adjective‐CCC trigram pairs. Half of the subjects in each group learned the list to a low degree of learning (DOL; 4/12 pairs); the remainder to a high DOL (8/12 pairs). Two distinct environmental contexts (providing implicit cues) were used during acquisition. Subjects then completed a cued recall (an explicit cue) test in either the same or a different room. Alcoholics were significantly inferior in the acquisition phase on trials required to reach criterion, regardless of DOL required [ F (1,68) = 10.92, p =0.002]. The main effect for implicit cuing was not significant; similarly, there were no significant interactions. In contrast, the explicit cue manipulation produced a significant group × DOL interaction on the number of trigrams correctly recalled [ F =(1,77)=6.38, p =0.01]; alcoholics' recall did not benefit from the higher DOL in contrast to a significant improvement in recall by controls. The failure of alcoholics to demonstrate improvement with higher levels of learning is consistent with a deficit in the availability of information. The results confirm previous reports of recovering alcoholics' verbal learning and memory dysfunction, and suggest that these deficits may be attributed, in part, to a deficit in the availability of information (retention).