Performance of normal and organic brain-damaged subjects on the Canter Background Interference Procedure test as a function of drive.

Examines the effect of increasing levels of drive on performance on the Canter Background Interference Procedure (Canter BIP), a modification of the Bender-Gestalt test. Ss were 30 brain-damaged and 60 normal adults. Drive was manipulated by the use of an array of intersecting curved lines (BIP paper) on a 2nd administration of the Bender-Gestalt test, and by threat and actual delivery of electric shock. As hypothesized, a U-shaped function was obtained for normal Ss in which initial increases in drive produced improvement in performance, but further increases resulted in decrements. As was also hypothesized, a linear relationship was obtained with the organic Ss in which all increases in drive level produced decrements in performance. Results were viewed as consistent with a motivational interpretation of the BIP effect. (29 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of age and education to Halstead test performance in different patient populations

Examined the effects of age and education on Halstead Neuropsychological Test Battery performance in a cross-validation of the A. Vega and O. A. Parsons's study (see record 1968-01419-001). Ss in the present study were 32 male and 3 female brain-damaged patients (mean age, 34.6 yrs) and 18 male and 7 female non-brain-damaged medical-surgical and psychiatric controls (mean age, 33.2 yrs). Age was significantly correlated with performance on the Category Test, Tactual Performance Test Time, Memory, Location, and the Impairment Index but not with Speech, Rhythm, or Tapping in brain-damaged patients. In medical-surgical and psychiatric patients, however, age was significantly correlated with all Halstead test performances. Education was not significantly correlated with performance in brain-damaged or psychiatric patients but was correlated with 6 Halstead tests in the medical-surgical group. Differences between correlation in psychiatric patients and medical-surgical control Ss are discussed. The importance of taking age into consideration as well as differences in various "control" or reference groups when making clinical inferences about the presence of brain dysfunction is stressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A fifteen-year followup with the Wechsler Memory Scale.

After a 15-yr interval, 19 brain-damaged and 12 control patients were retested on the Wechsler Memory Scale Form I. Results are examined in relation to 3 hypotheses. Briefly, the latter stated that brain-damaged patients would evidence a greater degree of memory impairment than formerly; control patients, without subsequently acquired organic diagnoses, would manifest only those changes which were consistent with advancing age; and differences between groups would retain their original levels of statistical significance. Findings lend a measure of support to the view that continued hospitalization acts as a depressant upon various types of performance. The nonorganic person may become indistinguishable from his organically impaired counterpart during the course of protracted confinement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Canter Background Interference Procedure (BIP): effects of demographic variables on diagnosis

This paper reports a positive association between demographic variables and Canter BIP diagnostic classification. Ss are 209 middle-aged men and include psychiatric and medical patients and non-patients. To evaluate the joint effects of the demographic variables, a discriminate analysis was performed on the total sample. Race and educational level alone predicted BIP diagnosis in 67% of the cases. While none of the demographic variables was related significantly to BIP diagnosis when a discriminate analysis was performed on whites alone, age and educational level were related significantly to BIP diagnosis when a discriminate analysis was performed on blacks alone.     

The validity of a visual searching task as an indicator of brain damage.

Required 17 brain-damaged patients, 17 non-brain-damaged psychiatric patients, and 17 nonpatient normal controls to perform a visual search. The task discriminated among the Ss at a statistically significant level. Using an optimal cut-off point, the task was 94.1% accurate in differentiating between brain-damaged and normal Ss and 79.4% accurate in differentiating between psychiatric and brain-damaged Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Immediate and delayed responses from memory in brain-damaged patients.

Hypothesized that brain-damaged (bd) patients perform more poorly than non-brain-damaged (nbd) patients on both immediate and delayed memory tasks and that the difference is greater on the delayed memory tasks. 24 bd and 24 nbd psychiatric patients were administered a 15-design multiple choice version of the benton visual retention test. Results support earlier findings that memory performance is susceptible to brain damage, but questions its relevance in specifying the 2 different memory functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory correlates of dysphasic language disturbances.

Compared the MMPI performances of 15 male dysphasic brain-damaged adults with the performances of 15 matched control brain-damaged Ss without specific language impairment. A significant overall difference on the 9 clinical scales combined was shown by multivariate analysis, with higher scores obtained by dysphasic Ss. Further univariate analysis showed significantly higher scores on the Pd and Sc scales. Results are discussed in terms of (a) evidence for a closer relation between MMPI variables and behavioral measures than between MMPI variables and neurological measures of lesion laterality, and (b) the interpretive limitations implied by uncritical transference of MMPI findings based on psychiatric patients and normals to patients with central nervous system lesions. The need for validation studies investigating social behavior correlates of MMPI results in brain-damaged samples is emphasized. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discriminant and factor analysis of the WAIS and the Satz-Mogel Abbreviated WAIS on brain-damaged and psychiatric patients.

Used a multivariate approach to compare diagnostic classification (brain-damaged vs psychiatric) of the abbreviated and the standard WAIS, using 118 brain-damaged and 55 psychiatric patients. Results show that in terms of hit rates, agreement, and subtest accuracy, there is a fair degree of similarity between the short and standard WAIS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychological test results associated with psychiatric disorders in adults.

Reviews 94 studies that compared test scores of psychiatric patients with scores of brain-damaged patients or with established norms for organicity. Despite methodological inconsistencies and deficiencies across studies, most studies found that psychiatric diagnostic groups other than chronic or process schizophrenics performed better than organics on testing. Organic vs functional discrimination rates reported in these studies are similar to discrimination rates obtained by the tests when organics are compared with normal or general medical controls. It is suggested that considered together with organicity base rate and error cost estimates, these discrimination rates were high enough to justify the use of most popular neuropsychological tests in psychiatric settings that do not have high proportions of chronic or process schizophrenics. The possibility is discussed that groups of chronic or process schizophrenics may look organic on neuropsychological tests because a significant proportion of such patients are organic. (4 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is the right hemisphere involved in idiom comprehension? A neuropsychological study.

Nonambiguous idiom comprehension was assessed in 15 right brain-damaged (RBD) and 12 left brain-damaged (LBD) aphasic patients by means of a string-to-picture matching task. Idiom comprehension was found to be severely impaired with a bias toward literal interpretation. The RBD patients, though impaired, performed significantly better than LBD patients; their performance was correlated with visuospatial abilities and was significantly affected by lesion site. The results of this study suggest that the performance of RBD patients in the comprehension of idiomatic sentences may be affected by (a) an involvement of the frontal lobe and/or (b) visuospatial deficits that may impair their performance on the picture-matching task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intradimensional reversal shift performance in brain-damaged and chronic alcoholic patients.

Examined impaired set-shifting behavior frequently reported in brain-damaged Ss. Using a simple E-paced, 2-choice, visual, intradimensional reversal shift task, samples of brain-damaged (n = 24), alcoholic (n = 28), and control (n = 24) male patients were compared on errors, reaction time, and behavioral impulsivity (finger lift before signal). Alcoholic Ss were not significantly different from controls on any of the measures. As expected, brain-damaged Ss had significantly more total errors, longer reaction times, and higher impulsivity scores than controls. Differences in errors appeared to be due to difficulty in maintaining the perceptual and motor set rather than in set shifting. The importance of investigating disruptions in set maintenance in the performance of brain-damaged Ss is emphasized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speed in test performance in depressed patients.

Compared the performance of 2 groups of nonschizophrenic, nonorganic, psychiatric patients—25 depressed (mean age 41.4 yrs) and 25 nondepressed (mean age 37.8 yrs) Ss—on several tests, including the Quick Test, the WAIS, and 10 speed tests and measures of ambiguous figure reversal rates. The 2 groups of Ss were matched for general psychopathology, sex, age, and education. No difference in the performance on power-cognitive (i.e., intelligence) tests was found. Depressed patients performed more slowly on psychomotor speed tests, confirming an earlier study comparing depressed patients and normal controls. Findings generally confirm those of the 1st author et al (1972) and those of several earlier studies summarized by W. R. Miller (see record 1975-20082-001). (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level versus pattern of neuropsychological performance among schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged patients.

Differences in both mean level and pattern of neuropsychological test performance were examined among groups of carefully screened schizophrenic and acute and chronic diffusely brain-damaged patients (24 Ss in each group). This was done separately for the WAIS subtests and the 12 average impairment rating (AIR) variables derived from the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. The schizophrenics performed at a significantly higher level than brain-damaged Ss on both test batteries. Subsequent deficit pattern analyses and coefficients of profile pattern similarity revealed very little difference among the 3 groups in their patterns of performance on the WAIS and AIR batteries. Discriminant function analyses were employed to estimate the diagnostic utility of level vs pattern of performance on the WAIS and AIR in discriminating schizophrenics from brain-damaged Ss. Results suggest that mean level of performance can be used to discriminate clearly defined schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged groups, but that pattern analysis offers little additional information. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in test performance between brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical patients.

Gave 18 white male hospitalized patients from each of 3 diagnostic categories (brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical) a battery of 9 psychological tests, including 5 from the Halstead Impairment Index, the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, the Trail Making Test (R. Reitan), and 2 tests from the WAIS. 16 measures were obtained, and the 3 groups of Ss were compared on each. The performance of the brain-damaged was significantly inferior to the medical patients on 14 of the 16 measures, and to the schizophrenics on 9 of the 16. There were no significant differences between the schizophrenics and the medical group on any of the 16 measures. When the scores on the 4 different tests were combined into Z scores, 78% of the brain-damaged, 67% of the schizophrenics, and 78% of the medical Ss were correctly diagnosed for presence or absence of brain damage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of supportive versus disinterested interviews on perceptual-motor performance in brain-damaged and neurotic patients.

The differential effect of 2 types of interpolated interviews upon the perceptual-motor performance (Stein's Symbol-Gestalt Test) of brain-damaged and neurotic patients was investigated in 2 experiments. Cross-validated results indicate that Ss given disinterested, impersonal, irrelevant information-gathering interviews have a significantly lower rate of improvement over 3 successive administrations of the test than Ss given warm, supportive, anxiety-reducing interviews. Interaction effects were significant in the brain-damaged groups but not in the neurotics. The results support Goldstein's contention that brain damage results in a heightened dependency upon external cues and feedback and emphasize the importance of E variables in the clinical assessment of, and research with, brain-damaged populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The rotation of drawings by brain-damaged patients.

2 hypotheses were tested with the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and the Drawing Version of the Block Design Rotation Test: (1) Brain-damaged patients rotate significantly more than non-brain-damaged patients, and (2) The factors influencing rotation in the blocks test would be the same in the drawing version. Ss consisted of 20 brain-damaged patients, 25 non-brain-damaged psychiatric patients, and a control group of 25 normal persons. It was found that rotation effects in a drawing version of a task requiring the copying of designs discriminated between brain-damaged and non-brain-damaged Ss. The relative influence of the factors affecting the appearance of the rotation effect in all Ss was shown to be different in the drawing version than in the blocks version. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An MMPI scale to separate brain-damaged from functional psychiatric patients in neuropsychiatric settings.

Developed an empirical MMPI scale, the Psychiatric–Organic (P–O) scale, to separate brain-damaged from functional psychiatric patients. It consisted of 56 items, which significantly differentiated 40 organic (mean age, 48.3 yrs) and 60 functional patients (mean age, 40.0 yrs) in a psychiatric hospital. Upon cross-validation with 361 male patients under 60 yrs of age, it was found capable of separating organics from process and reactive schizophrenics, alcoholics, and neurotics, as well as patients with character disorders and affective psychoses. Additionally, it was found that by using the scale in combination with a traditional brain-damage test (the Benton Visual Retention Test), better discrimination could be achieved than was possible with either measure alone. The comparative probabilities of functional and organic diagnoses for various P–O scale ranges are presented. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Conceptual area" among pathological groups: A failure to replicate.

The ability of the "conceptual-area" scoring system to differentiate between tuberculous, process schizophrenic, reactive schizophrenic, and brain-damaged patients was tested by administering the Object Sorting Test to 125 hospitalized veterans. The diagnostic groups were equivalent in mean education, intelligence, and length of hospitalization, but the tuberculous and brain-damaged patients averaged 8 yr. older than the schizophrenics. None of the scores differentiated the groups at the .05 level. In discussing these results, it was maintained that, contrary to comment in the literature, "conceptual area" has never conclusively differentiated, in a simultaneous comparison, between nonpsychiatric, brain-damaged, and schizophrenic patients, and may not be appropriate for this purpose. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motor impersistence in patients with unilateral cerebral disease: A cross-validational study.

Evaluated 8 simple motor tasks comprising a motor impersistence test battery both individually and in combination as indicators of unilateral cerebral disease. Previously developed scoring criteria were applied to the performances of 32 right-handed brain-damaged and 32 control patients. Classificatory efficiency provided by overall performance on 6 of the tasks (70%) approached the level achieved by overall performance on the full battery of 8 tests. Side of lesion was found to be unrelated to performance within the brain-damaged group. Further study of an unselected patient sample is indicated in order to evaluate the incremental validity of the test battery in the neuropsychological examination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance characteristics of school children on the BIP Bender test.

Attempted "to determine what the 'normal' characteristics of children's performance would be on the -Background Interference Procedure= BIP Bender." 272 6-14 yr. old Ss "were administered the BIP Bender Test and a Coding test based on the one in the WISC battery . . . . The BIP Bender tests were scored by the method proposed by A. Canter (see 43:1). Scores on all tests changed with age. The "ability to cope with the BIP effect . . . is fairly well established" by age 13 and is unaffected by differences in intelligence. A modification of procedure on the Bender is needed to make the technique more useful for evaluation of younger children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)