Evidence for impersistence in young male alcoholics

This investigation compared a group of 30-year-old male Veterans Administration inpatient alcoholics with an IQ, age, and education matched comparison group of nonpsychiatric VA outpatients or blue collar employees on three measures of persistence: Matching to Familiar Figures Test (MFFT), Retarded Rotation Test (RRT), and Mirror Tracing (MT). Alcoholics were found to make significantly more errors on the MFFT and MT tasks, but didn't differ significantly from nonalcoholics on the RRT. The alcoholics were also differentiated from the nonalcoholics on an overall index of persistence based on a combination of the three measures. The ramifications of the findings for understanding the etiology of the neuropsychological deficits manifested by alcoholics are discussed.