Chronic marijuana smokers show reduced coding into long-term storage

Abstract

Chronic high-frequency marijuana users were compared to nonusers on a task involving short-term retention of three words. Forced processing (reading) of an additional 2, 6, or 10 words was interpolated between initial presentation and recall. Mean proportion of words recalled was significantly reduced for chronic users, and this reduction was especially pronounced with more forced processing between initial presentation and recall. This pattern of impairment indicates that chronic marijuana smokers show a reduction in the transfer of information from short-term storage to a more permanent level of information storage. © 1976, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.