The Performance of Hemisphere-Damaged Patients on Spatial Intelligence Tests

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the bearing of the hemispheric side of the lesion, of language disturbances and of visual field defects on two intelligence tests loaded with spatial factors, such as Elithorn's Perceptual Maze Test and Raven's Progressive Matrices 1938. These tests were administered to right and left brain-damaged patients. The two hemispheric groups were divided into subgroups according to presence/absence of visual field defects and (within the left hemisphere group) of aphasia. Scores were analyzed by means of co-variance analysis, concomitant variables being age, years of schooling and visual reaction times (considered as a measure of the severity of the lesion). No significant difference was found between the performances of the two hemispheric groups on the Progressive Matrices. Right brain-damaged patients performed worse than left brain-damaged patients on the Perceptual Maze Test, but any significant difference disappeared when scores were adjusted for visual reaction times, which were slower in the right brain-damaged group. Aphasics performed worse than non-aphasic left brain-damaged patients on both tests, while patients with visual field defects performed worse than those without visual field defects on the Perceptual Maze Test only.