Different emotional tones significantly affect recognition performance in patients with Korsakoff psychosis

The performance in reidentifying photographs was measured in alcoholic Korsakoff patients, in non-amnesic alcoholics and in a control group. The photographs showed well-known and unknown faces and buildings and alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. A minimum of 15 min elapsed between the end of the original presentation of the series and the beginning of its second presentation within a large number of additional photographs. Korsakoff patients were significantly inferior in number of correctly reidentified items compared to alcoholics who were in turn significantly inferior to the control group. Korsakoff patients manifested the poorest performance in the reidentification of unknown pictures and of nonalcoholic beverages; they showed, however, comparatively good performance in the reidentification of alcoholic beverages and of known faces. Independent of the category of the stimulus material, the Korsakoff patients had low confidence in their responses. It is concluded from these data that the emotional tone of material to be remembered constitutes a major variable for delayed effective retrieval.