Note on the Relationship between Figural Aftereffects and Intelligence in Diffusely Brain-Damaged Individuals

Abstract

It has been reported that mentally deficient individuals or individuals with brain damage of long tand ding do not reveal visual figural aftereffects (V-FAE) to the same extent as normals (Spitz & Blackman, 1959; Spivack & Levine, 1 9 5 9 ) . Similar findings are reported for kinesthetic figural aftereffects (K-FAE) (Mark, 1955; Spitz & Lipman, in press). It has also been reported by Spivack and Levine (1959) that in a group of female brain-damaged Ss there was a significant positive relationship between V-FAE and intelligence as measured by a multiple-choice vocabulary test (Miner, 1957) . The purpose of the present communication is to report on the relationship between V-FAE and intelligence in a group of brain-damaged males. The procedure employed closely approximates that used earlier (Spivack & Levine, 1959) . Twenty-eight braindamaged males (age range, 14 to 3 9 ) were compared with 28 emotionally disturbed males (age range 13 to 19) and 20 normal males (ages 13 to 1 9 ) . A significant V-FAE was obtained only in the normal group. There was no significant correlation of age with V-FAE scores in any group. For each group, the vocabulary scores were compared for those showing a positive V-FAE and those not having a positive V-FAE. The only significant difference was found in the brain-damaged group, indicating that those brain-damaged individuals with a positive V-FAE had significant lower vocabulary test scores than those not having a positive V-FAE. The present finding with a group of m d e brain-damaged Ss is exactly the opposite of previously reported findings with female brain-damaged Ss. The different signs of the correlations bring to mind Barthol's (1958) results, indicating significant correlations between K-FAE and phi thresholds for both males and females. Here the signs of the correlations differed for each sex. The meaning and relationship, if any, of our findings and Barthol's, are obscure.