Within the past 25 years, cognitive deficits found to be associated with alcoholism have included slowed processing of information, difficulty in learning new material, deficits in abstraction and problem-solving, and reduced visuospatial abilities (i.e., the capacity to deal with objects in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space; Ellis and Oscar-Berman 1989). Reduced visuospatial abilities have been reported most consistently. Sections of IQ tests (called performance subscales) that are especially sensitive to visuospatial abilities commonly are used to assess deficits in this area. These IQ subscales usually impose time limits and include such tasks as substituting symbols for numbers, assembling small jigsaw puzzles, or arranging colored cubes in the same pattern as that presented in a picture (figure 1).
