A verbal semantic deficit in the alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome.
A test designed to assess the adequacy of knowledge about specific words, presumed to be well established in long-term storage, was administered to 5 alcoholic Korsakoff patients, 3 post-trauma amnesics, and 5 normal controls. The 400 question true/false test tapped knowledge of basic and obscure attributes and functions of 25 noun-concepts. The data indicate that traumatic amnesics made more total errors than Korsakoff amnesics, who in turn made more errors than normals. However, Korsakoffs made a greater proportion of errors on basic-knowledge items than the other groups. It is concluded that semantic organization is impaired in both amnesic groups, although differently. The post-trauma error pattern suggests a uni-factor deficit while the Korsakoff pattern suggests a multifactor deficit.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000425:Alcohol Amnestic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000187:drug effects; D008875:Middle Aged; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000187:drug effects