Impaired efficiency in female alcoholics' neuropsychological performance

Forty-eight female detoxified alcoholics and 36 female nonalcoholic controls were administered a short computerized neuropsychological test battery; accuracy and speed were assessed for each item. The accuracy and speed scores were used to create summary efficiency ratios (accuracy/speed) for each test. Alcoholics had significantly lower efficiency ratios than controls on each of the tests, and this deficit was maintained across instructional conditions (emphasizing speed, accuracy, or speed and accuracy equally) and level of task difficulty. In addition, alcoholics and controls manifested similar types of relationships between response speed and correctness of the response, with these relationships varying as a function of type of task. The results of this study illustrate the benefits of including speed of response as a performance variable, and provide further support for the use of efficiency as a measure sensitive to alcoholic neuropsychological impairment.