PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES OF KORSAKOFFʼS PSYCHOSIS

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Abstract
As compared with a control group of alcoholic patients, matched for age and without known brain damage, the Korsakoff patients showed no loss in speed of reaction on verbal or manual tasks, and their rate of continuous activity was also equal to that of controls while engaged on a single task. Korsakoff patients were slowed down in verbal tasks which failed to provide definite directives, on some manual skill tests which required a division of their attention between 2 or more tasks, and in activity which involved a reversal of old established habits or continuous scanning. Alerting signals failed to speed up their reaction, and in fact had the opposite effect. They did not spontaneously resume tasks interrupted before completion. Results support several findings based on clinical observation and on experimental studies of Korsakoff patients. These patients lack initiative, and function most effectively under closely defined instructions. Their vocabulary is apparently intact and normally available. Their effector mechanisms show no impairment specific to the disease, and their poor retention of memories is not accompanied by low persistence or by a rapid abandonment of a set. On the contrary, their performance tends to be efficient as long as an old established or the first situationally induced set remains appropriate.

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