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Kornetsky studied the changes in performance on psychological tests by human subjects experimentally addicted to barbiturates. Five former morphine addicts who volunteered for the experiments were given sufficiently large doses of seconal, amytal, and nembutal, for from ninety-two to one hundred and forty-four days with the production of chronic intoxication. Six different psychological tests were used. The same studies were made during the period of withdrawal from the barbiturates, during the recovery period lasting two or three months, and then again during a period of re-intoxication.
During the chronic intoxication period there was a quick decline in ability followed by a period of increased efficiency and then a slight drop again. There was greatest impairment in tasks involving speed, lesss impairment in those involving copying, and least in tasks requiring behavior that had been stabilized in the past experience of the subject. Kornetsky found a loss of ego control manifested by pathology in the projective tests. 'Id factors' in the personality were expressed more easily by the subject, this becoming more pronounced as intoxication continued. Those patients who developed psychotic reactions during the withdrawal phase showed certain typical preaddiction Rorschach patterns such as deficiency in affect and fantasy. After discontinuance of the barbiturates, the performance of the subjects quickly reverted to the preaddiction level with no evidence of residual damage.