Visual-spatial learning in nonalcoholic young adults with and those without a family history of alcoholism

Visual-spatial learning in young adult nonalcoholic men and women with (FH+) and those without (FH-) a family history of alcoholism was investigated using nonsense shapes of high and low verbal association value. Four groups of FH+ and FH- men and women, 16 subjects in each group, were tested. The male FH+ group required significantly more trials to reach learning criterion and made more errors than the male FH- group; the FH effect was not significant in females although similar trends were present. Women exhibited significantly poorer visual-spatial learning compared to the men. High compared to low verbal association shapes were learned in fewer trials with fewer errors by all groups. There were no significant FH by verbal association interactions, indicating that the impaired visual-spatial learning in the FH+ men could not be ascribed to the meaningfulness dimension of the nonsense shapes. These results suggest that the impaired visual-spatial learning found in adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) might be due in part to premorbid cognitive deficits.