UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Reasoning in organic brain disease.

Langdon, Dawn Wendy; (1993) Reasoning in organic brain disease. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

[thumbnail of Reasoning_in_organic_brain_dis.pdf]
Preview
Text
Reasoning_in_organic_brain_dis.pdf

Download (11MB) | Preview

Abstract

Whilst the measurement of reasoning ability in the normal population is well established and reliable, the assessment of the reasoning powers of people who have suffered brain damage remains problematic. This is due in part to the prejudicial effects of motor and sensory impairments on classical tests of reasoning and in part to the confounding effects of focal cognitive impairments. A new test of inductive reasoning in organic brain disease has been developed, which attempts to minimise these constraints. The new test has six sections, matched sets of odd one, analogy and series problems, presented in verbal and non-verbal formats. Following a pilot study, three experimental series were constructed to serve as both standardisation and validation samples. They comprised a control sample of 155 adults and two series of 40 patients who had suffered unilateral cerebral lesions to the right and left hemisphere. All subjects attempted the new test and a selection of established tests of cognitive function. Standard measures of reliability and validity were demonstrated to be at an acceptable level. The normative data from the control sample was used to analyse the scores of the two lesion series. The left lesion group was impaired on all six sections of the new test; the right lesion group was intact on verbal odd one and verbal analogy, but impaired on all three of the nonverbal sections and verbal series. It is concluded that the left hemisphere has a crucial role in inductive reasoning problems, whether presented in verbal or non verbal format and that some right hemisphere functions are implicated in arithmetic reasoning. Because reasoning ability was not shown to fractionate as a result of acquired brain damage, the theoretical model of reasoning ability remains remarkably close to Spearman's original description of g.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: Reasoning in organic brain disease.
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Thesis digitised by ProQuest.
Keywords: Biological sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10102998
Downloads since deposit
104Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item