Visual memory of Black and White male heroin and nonheroin drug users.

Abstract

Compared levels of intellectual functioning, as measured by the Raven Progressive Matrices (RPM), with expected levels of visual memory, as measured by the Benton Revised Visual Retention Test (BVRT). Whereas substance abusers scored within the average range of intelligence on the RPM, on the BVRT the means of both heroin addicts (n = 467) and polydrug abusers (n = 310) were 2 standard deviations below expected performance. Significant differences found in analysis of covariance and multiple regression models were not attributable to either demographic factors (age, education, socioeconomic status) or personality differences (as measured by MMPI scales). Like polydrug abusers, heroin addicts evidenced interference in immediate, short-term memory, confirming earlier findings of marked perceptual disturbances among detoxified addicts. Unlike earlier findings, results reveal significant ethnic differences. A need for establishing Black norms is indicated for the BVRT and perhaps for other neuropsychological assessment procedures that lack ethnic norms. (9 ref)

Race in the "Decade of the Brain"

“…These data include studies examining "face effect" (Bruyer and Dusart 1985), bias in neuropsychological test classification (Adams et al 1982), impairment in dementia (Cohen and Carlin 1993;Lowenstein et al 1993), pattern of neuropsychological impairment in lateralized cerebrovascular lesions (Brown et al 1991), naming and language tests (Roberts and Hamsher 1983;Lichtenberg et al 1994), Benton Visual Retention Task (Penk et al 1981), and "right to left" language orientation (Fox et al 1984). The brain imaging reports that include unambiguous information about race are scattered and mirror those in neuropsychology.…”