[Subclinical deficit in the memory of chronic alcoholics. Comparison between 2 learning tests]

Normal subjects and chronic alcoholics without clinical evidence of memory disorders have been compared on two tasks of verbal learning of a word list, one administered with the classical procedure and the other with the "selective reminding" technique developed by Bushke. Results showed that the selective reminding technique has the same discriminative power as the classical procedure: both brought out a remarkable learning deficit in chronic alcoholics. The selective reminding procedure is easier to administer and can distinguish between storage and retrieval deficits; it seems therefore preferable for diagnostic purposes. Practical criteria to distinguish a normal from pathologic performance on this test are suggested. Alcoholics were also inferior on Raven Progressive Matrices. The scope of the impairment produced by chronic alcohol consumption is wider than suggested by clinical observations and deserves careful assessment.