Alcoholics Suffer Acute Memory Loss, Yet Are Unaware of Their Deficits
Memory loss is one of the adverse reactions to heavy alcohol use. Excessive drinking can lead to neurological problems, such as short-term memory loss, causing the alcoholic to sometimes forget conversations or events (known as ‘blacking out’), and experience other episodes of confusion or disordered thinking. Now, a new study has found that alcoholism also negatively impacts an alcoholic’s metamemory—one’s self-awareness of their memory, used when judging how much one has learned. Even though alcoholism affects metamemory, alcoholics overestimate how much they can remember and are unaware of their memory deficiencies.
In their study, researchers Anne-Pascale Le Berre and colleagues from the Department of Neuropsychology at the Universite de Caen/Basse-Normandie in France assessed the episodic memory—the brain’s memory system for processing, storing, and retrieving memories of experienced events—of alcoholics since chronic alcohol use is known to impair this part of the brain. In addition, the researchers investigated the metamemory of alcoholics since this capability enables one to rely on memories to make behavioral and skillful decisions.
The researchers tested the metamemory of 28 alcoholic patients using a ‘feeling-of-knowing’ (FOK) measure. FOK is one’s feeling as to whether or not they have knowledge of a subject within their memory, and an FOK assessment compares what the participant believes they will be able to remember during a memory task, and what they are actually able to remember. A control group of 28 healthy adults was also tested for comparison. The participants were required to complete an episodic memory task that involved memorizing 20 pairs of items and then recognizing and recalling the items after a 20-minute delay. Before participants were asked to perform the recognition segment of the memory task, participants self-rated their ability to recognize each correct word related to the items. Moreover, all participants completed a Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire and were evaluated on their episodic memory and executive functioning skills.
For the FOK measure, the alcoholic patients were unable to correctly predict their ability to perform the memory task. In actuality, the alcoholic patients failed to subsequently recognize the correct words associated with the test items, even though they had believed themselves to be capable of remembering. The alcoholic patients tended to overestimate their memory capabilities, believing themselves to have a memory capacity as strong as the non-alcoholic participants. Despite exhibiting long-term deficits to their episodic memory due to excessive alcohol use, the alcoholic patients still provided the same predictions regarding their memory capacities on their subjective MIA questionnaires as the non-alcoholic participants.
According to the study, not only does chronic alcohol use affect an alcoholic’s episodic memory but their metamemory as well. These deficiencies impair an alcoholic’s ability to recall original information. This discovery may help explain why recovering alcoholics have difficulty adhering to cognitive behavioral therapy which teaches them to anticipate situations that may put them at high risk of relapse. Because alcoholics overestimate their episodic and metamemory skills, they do not realize that they haven’t sufficiently retained the information they were taught during therapy. This makes treatment more difficult to benefit from and could put this population at greater risk of relapse since they are less capable of processing and retaining self-management skills. Furthermore, this may also explain why some alcoholics believe themselves to have recovered from drunkenness sooner than they actually have, leading them to the erroneous conclusion that they are capable of performing risky tasks like driving after drinking.
The researchers conclude that alcoholism caused the alcoholic patients’ episodic memory deficit and executive dysfunction, a decline which attributes to their loss in metamemory as well. The researchers’ study is available online and in the November print issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Source: HealthDay News, Robert Preidt, Alcoholics Overestimate Their Ability to Recall Things: Study, August 27, 2010
