Table 1.

Demographical variables, drinking history, pre-learning assessment and explicit and implicit memory results in the four groups

	Trial-and-error learning		Errorless learning
	Control subjects	Alcoholic patients	Control subjects	Alcoholic patients
Demographical variables
Size of the sample	19	19	15	15
Age	49.15 (4.83)	46.68 (5.34)	48.68 (3.76)	48.36 (5.29)
Years of education	11.58 (2.29)	10.11 (2.92)	11.00 (1.41)	10.67 (2.06)
Drinking history
Alcohol use (year)	n/a	28.41 (8.16)	n/a	33.07 (7.07)
Alcohol misuse (year)	n/a	21.73 (8.81)	n/a	16.43 (8.84)
Alcohol consumption per day (standard drink)	n/a	18.23 (9.09)	n/a	22.97 14.32)
Pre-learning assessment
Naming score (Max= 10)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0.20 (0.41)	0 (0)
Explicit memory task
Sum of the three free recalls* (Max= 48)	31.37 (4.50)	26.74 (7.36)	31.73 (4.58)	29.00 (4.39)
Implicit memory task
Reaction times difference (ms)	n/a	n/a	33.78 (41.74)	20.90 (26.09)

Mean (SD); n/a: not applicable;

^*significant difference between the control groups and the alcoholic ones