Thomas M. Heffernan

Research into the cognitive consequences of chronic excessive alcohol use continues to grow. Despite this, little research has investigated what impact excessive alcohol use might have upon everyday remembering. An important aspect of everyday remembering is prospective memory (PM), which refers to the cognitive ability of remembering to carry out an intended action at some future point in time. The majority of the studies which have focused on what impact excessive alcohol use has upon PM in teenagers and young adults have consistently found that the excessive drinkers reported more lapses in their short term (e.g., forgetting to lock ones door upon leaving home) and long term (e.g., forgetting to post a letter on time) aspects of everyday PM, when compared to low-dose alcohol users or non-users. It is concluded from this review that PM deficits should be added to the growing list of neuropsychological sequelae associated with excessive alcohol use. The magnitude of the effects of alcohol on PM depends upon the amount of alcohol consumed and how long one has been drinking. Major limitations of these studies include their reliance upon the use of self-report measures of PM, the issue of polydrug use complicating the picture, the need to control for the co-morbidity of other conditions - such as depression, and better drug-screening methods. Therefore, further studies need to employ objective measures alongside self-report measures of PM, incorporate better controls for the use of other drugs and mood states, as well as extending the focus of the research to study what effect different patterns of alcohol use might have upon PM, e.g., what impact binge drinking has upon everyday PM. These findings have educational and applied relevance within the alcohol field.

Chronic use of MDMA (3,4‐methylenedioxymethamphetamine), or Ecstasy, is believed to lead to impaired psychological performance, including well‐documented decrements in laboratory and field tests of retrospective memory. Less is known about the impact of Ecstasy on aspects of ‘everyday’ memory, despite obvious concerns about such effects. The three studies reported here focused on the impact of chronic Ecstasy use on prospective memory (PM), associated central executive function and other aspects of day‐to‐day cognition. In study 1 46 regular Ecstasy users were compared with 46 Ecstasy‐free controls using the Prospective Memory Questionnaire (PMQ). Ecstasy users reported significantly more errors in PM (remembering to do something in the future); these findings persisted after controlling for other drug use and the number of strategies used to aid memory. No difference was found between representative subgroups on the Lies Scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. In study 2 a different group of 30 regular Ecstasy users and 37 Ecstasy‐free controls was assessed on the PMQ and on a central executive task comprising verbal fluency measures. The results confirmed the significant impairments in long‐ and short‐term PM and revealed corresponding impairments in verbal fluency. In study 3 15 Ecstasy users, 15 cannabis users and 15 non‐drug users were assessed using the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, which requires participants to provide ratings of the frequency of various day‐to‐day cognitive slips. The results indicate that the Ecstasy users did not perceive their general cognitive performance to be worse than that of controls. Taken together, these results suggest that Ecstasy users have impaired PM that cannot be explained by an increased propensity to exaggerate cognitive failures. These may be attributable, in part, to central executive deficits that are due to frontal lobe damage associated with Ecstasy use. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Prospective memory (PM) is memory for future events. PM is a developing area of research (e.g., Brandimonte, Einstein & McDaniel, 1996) with recent work linking personality types and their utilisation of PM (Goschke & Kuhl, 1996; Searleman, 1996). The present study compared 28 extraverts and 28 introverts on their short‐ and long‐term prospective memory using the Prospective Memory Scale developed by Hannon, Adams, Harrington, Fries‐Dias & Gibson (1995). The main finding was that extraverts reported significantly fewer errors on short‐ and long‐term PM than introverts, and this difference could not be explained in terms of the number of strategies used to support prospective remembering. These findings are discussed in relation to differences between the personality types.

Chronic use of MDMA (3,4‐methylenedioxymethamphetamine), or ‘ecstasy’, is associated with significant cognitive impairments, particularly in laboratory and field tests of memory for previously encoded material. Less is known about the effects of a history of MDMA use on aspects of everyday cognitive functioning–of which prospective memory (typically characterised as ‘remembering to do something at some future point’) is an important aspect. Self‐ratings of prospective memory among 30 regular ecstasy users (taking the drug 10 or more times per month) and 31 ecstasy‐free controls were compared. Each participant completed the Prospective Memory Questionnaire, which measures self‐rated error frequencies relating to three aspects of prospective memory (short‐term habitual, long‐term episodic and internally cued); the scale also records the use of strategies to aid remembering. Compared with non‐users, ecstasy users reported significantly more self‐rated errors in prospective memory, an effect which was evident after co‐varying levels of other drug use. There were no significant differences in the use of strategies to aid memory. These findings provide new insights into prospective memory dysfunction in recreational drug users. Prospective memory deficits may be related to the reported serotonergic and frontal lobe deficits in chronic MDMA users. It is necessary to use more objective tasks to assess putative prospective memory deficits in ecstasy users. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.