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Organization of psychological functions in alcoholics and nonalcoholics: a test of the compensatory hypothesis
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City 73104, USA.
Objective:
We investigated the compensatory hypothesis that cognitive deficits in sober alcoholics would reveal differences in the organization of their cognitive structures or functions relative to nonalcoholic peers with no deficits.
Method:
Following the method of Tracy and Bates, who tested a similar hypothesis in light versus heavy social drinkers, we used structural equation modeling (SEM: LISREL) to test the compensatory hypothesis. Alcoholics (n = 131, 83 male) and peer nonalcoholics (n = 83, 47 male) were given tests of verbal, visual-spatial and abstracting/problem-solving skills.
Results:
LISREL analyses indicated that the three factors (latent variables) representing the three skills and the loading of the tasks on these factors were invariant (i.e., similar) across groups. However, factor variances and covariances were noninvariant. Analyses identifying the sources of these differences revealed similarities between the heavy social drinkers of Tracy and Bates' study and our alcoholic sample.
Conclusions:
Results from the present study on cognitive organization in alcoholics, as well as our interpretation of Tracy and Bates' findings on the same in heavy social drinkers, support the notion of compensation and reorganization of cognitive function; however, other explanations cannot be ruled out.