The process-oriented approach also has been used to examine a broad range of cognitive functions in non-Korsakoff alcoholics. Nixon and Parsons proposed a model called a component-process model (Parsons and Nixon 1993; Nixon 1993). Their model encompasses two information stores, referred to as the “episodic store” and the “knowledge information store,” within which three component processes (described below)—availability, access, and efficiency—may operate. The approach’s goal is to determine which processes and/or stores are impaired in alcoholics to cause cognitive deficits. Learning and memory of context-bound information (e.g., recalling where you were or what you were doing when you heard of the assassination of President Kennedy or of the explosion of the Challenger spacecraft) is housed in the episodic store. Processes related to the use of language, logic, and semantic knowledge (e.g., knowing that President Kennedy was assassinated), in addition to processes related to abstracting and problem-solving, are housed within the knowledge-information store.
