Geographic orientation in patients with unilateral cerebral disease

Abstract

The accuracy of geographic orientation was studied in patients with unilateral cerebral disease and control patients. The influence of educational background on performance was also assessed. When educational background was controlled, the patients with brain disease performed more poorly than the controls on tasks requiring the localization of states and cities on a map of the United States and on a verbal test requiring them to indicate the directional relations between places. Educational background showed both an overall influence on performance level and an interaction with diagnostic category, the less well educated patients with brain disease showing a larger difference from their controls than did patients with better education. A “vector” score, reflecting a shift in localization toward the left or right part of the map differentiated between patients with right and left hemisphere disease and suggested neglect of the visual field contralateral to the side of lesion in some of these patients. The relationship between directional bias in geographic orientation and unilateral neglect in simpler spatial localization tasks remains an open question.