Assessment of prose recall performance in chronic alcoholics : Recall of essential versus detail propositions

Evidence for impaired psychological functions medicated by the left hemisphere in sober alcoholics is inconsistent. We predicted that sober alcoholics have deficits in immediate and delayed memory similar to deficits found in left hemisphere damaged patients. Four prose stories were administered to 24 alcoholics and 24 nonalcoholic peers and were scored according to Webster et al.'s criteria for essential and detail propositions. These investigators found that right hemisphere stroke patients performed significantly worse than controls on recall of detail propositions. but left hemisphere damaged stroke patients performed worse on recall of both detail and essential propositions. Similar to their left hemisphere group. our alcoholics were impaired on both proposition types supporting the hypothesis of a residual mild generalized brain dysfunction state in sober alcoholics.