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Left-hemisphere infarct in a 58-year-old man failed to produce aphasia but did result in impaired visuospatial ability and in specific higher-order linguistic deficits. Right-hemisphere language laterality was confirmed by amytal tests. The findings suggest that right-hemisphere language dominance (a) may appear in conjunction with left-hemisphere laterality for nonlanguage functions and (b) may impose limitations on linguistic functions similar to those observed in cases of early left hemispherectomy.

Reviews of the literature have suggested that, following anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) for treatment of medically intractable epilepsy, most cognitive functions remain unchanged, some exhibit a relative loss compared to preoperative levels, and some cognitive functions improve. The purpose of this investigation was to identify more precisely the nature and degree of this postoperative cognitive stability, loss, and gain. Thirty-eight patients undergoing ATL received an extensive neuropsychological evaluation both preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively. Utilizing an operational definition of neuropsychological test change that was hypothesized to be sensitive to performance alterations of probable clinical significance, we found that 77% of the neuropsychological measures remained unchanged following ATL. Of the cognitive change that occurred, 58% of the changes reflected significant cognitive improvement, whereas 42% of the changes reflected relative cognitive declines. Specific results are presented in regard to nine cognitive domains (psychometric intelligence, academic achievement, language function, visuoperceptual and visuospatial ability, memory and learning ability, problem-solving skills, sensorimotor ability, auditory-perceptual function, and complex attention/concentration skills). Only the area of memory/learning showed more cognitive loss than gain, and the area of novel problem-solving ability showed the most improvement. The clinical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

The cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (CMRglc) was measured with positron emission tomography and [18F]2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose in 14 healthy subjects with Down's syndrome, 19 to 33 years old, and in six healthy Down's syndrome subjects over 35 years, two of whom were demented. Dementia was diagnosed from a history of mental deterioration, disorientation and hallucinations. All Down's syndrome subjects were trisomy 21 karyotype. CMRglc also was examined in 15 healthy men aged 20-35 years and in 20 healthy men aged 45-64 years. All subjects were at rest with eyes covered and ears plugged. Mean hemispheric CMRglc in the older Down's syndrome subjects was significantly less, by 23%, than in the young Down's syndrome group; statistically significant decreases in regional metabolism (rCMRglc) also were present in all lobar regions. Comparison of the younger control group with the older control group showed no difference in CMRglc or any rCMRglc (p greater than 0.05). Assessment of language, visuospatial ability, attention and memory showed significant reductions in test scores of the old as compared with the young Down's syndrome subjects. These results show that significant age differences in CMRglc and rCMRglc occur in Down's syndrome but not in healthy controls, and that, although only some older Down's syndrome subjects are demented, significant age reductions in neuropsychologic variables occur in all of them.

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The objective of the present study was to examine relations between social network size and three cognitive abilities (episodic memory, semantic memory, visuospatial ability) in middle-aged adults. We analyzed cross-sectional data on social network size and cognitive functioning that were available for 804 participants aged 40–60 years. In addition, we examined 5- and 10-year follow-up measurements of cognitive functioning that were available for 604 and 255 participants, respectively. Cross-sectional analyses revealed a positive association between social network size and each of the three cognitive abilities. Baseline network size was positively related to 5-year changes in semantic memory, and to 10-year changes in semantic as well as episodic memory, but was unrelated to changes in visuospatial performance. A minor portion of the sample (n = 131) had 10-year follow-up data on network size. Cross-lagged panel correlations revealed that baseline network size was associated with follow-up measurement in cognitive functioning (episodic memory, semantic memory), whereas baseline cognitive performance was unrelated to future network size. Together, the results demonstrate a small but positive relation between network size and declarative memory abilities, in line with models proposing a cognitive reserve built up by factors such as the increased cognitive stimulation associated with a more extensive social network. Originally published in manuscript form.

Visuospatial processing in chronic alcoholism was investigated by asking subjects to make similarity judgements of hierarchically constructed visual stimuli. Comparison figures were similar to a standard figure at the global or local level. Alcoholics were less influenced by the global patterns in their similarity judgements than were controls. On the WAIS-R Block Design subtest, alcoholics were also more likely than controls to distort the outer configuration of the design. Results indicate that alcoholism affects global processing on both experimental visuoperception tasks and on clinical measures of visuospatial ability. Implications for models of alcoholic dysfunction are discussed.

Parieto-preoccipital lesions in monkeys produce a variety of behavioral deficits, many of which can be classified as either visuospatial or tactual. Since the lesions typically invade a number of cytoarchitectonic areas, the diverse behavioral effects could be a consequence of damage to different functional systems. To determine whether visuospatial ability depends critically on a particular parieto-preoccipital sector — inferior parietal, lateral preoccipital, or medial parieto-preoccipital — or on a particular combination of them, monkeys with lesions of one, two, or all three of these sectors were tested both on the ‘landmark’ task, a visual distance discrimination, and, for comparison, on a visual pattern discrimination. Impairment was found only on the landmark task, and the severity of the impairment depended on the number of sectors included in the removal, completely independent of their locus. In an attempt to integrate these results with current neurobiological data, we propose that the parieto-preoccipital region consists of two subdivisions that are organized hierarchically for the mediation of spatial perception. The lower-order subdivision, composed largely of the modality-specific preoccipital area, dorsal OA, is postulated to serve visuospatial processes selectively. The higher-order subdivision, composed mainly of the polysensory parietal area, PG, is postulated to serve a supramodal spatial ability to which both the visual and tactual modalities contribute.

We have tested a simple and reliable measure of visuospatial ability in Alzheimer patients--the Clock Drawing Test. To determine the usefulness of this measure, we asked 67 Alzheimer patients and 83 normal controls to draw the face of a clock reading the time of 2:45. Six independent observers blindly evaluated the results with ratings from 10 (best) to 1 (worst). The mean performance score of Alzheimer subjects was 4.9 +/- 2.7 compared to 8.7 +/- 1.1 for normal controls (P less than .001). Inter-rater reliability for the clocks drawn by Alzheimer patients was highly significant (r = 0.86; P less than .001), and there was relatively little overlap between ratings for Alzheimer patients and normal controls. Furthermore, correlations were highly significant (P less than .001) between the mean score of clock drawings and three independent global measures of dementia severity. Although the Clock Drawing Test is certainly not a definitive indicator of Alzheimer's disease, the test is easy to administer and provides a useful measure of dementia severity for both research and office settings where sophisticated neuropsychological testing is not available.

SUMMARY Previous research on visuospatial function in Parkinson's disease is reviewed The present experiment was designed to test two fundamental aspects of spatial ability, namely right-left discrimination and the manipulation of those concepts in different spatial perspectives Measures of accuracy and reaction time were taken The performance of patients with Parkinson's disease did not differ from that of normal subjects in the spatial components of the task. Neither a review of the literature, nor the results of the present study, give support to the idea of a generalized visuospatial deficit in Parkinson's disease.

Background: The challenges of today's society call for more knowledge about how to maintain all aspects of cognitive health, such as speed/attention, memory/learning, visuospatial ability, language ...

Objectives Loneliness is associated with poorer cognitive function in old age; however, the direction of this association is unknown. We tested for reciprocal associations between loneliness and the cognitive ability domains of processing speed, visuospatial ability, verbal memory, and crystallized ability. Method We used three triennial waves of longitudinal data from the Lothian Birth Cohort Study 1936, and tested for cross-lagged associations between loneliness and cognitive abilities using cross-lagged panel models. Results Better processing speed, visuospatial ability, or crystallized ability at age 73, was associated with less positive changes in loneliness between ages 73 and 76; however, these associations were not replicated between ages 76 and 79. Loneliness at ages 73 and 76 did not predict subsequent changes in cognitive abilities. Discussion Our findings indicate an association between cognitive ability and loneliness, such that individuals with lower cognitive abilities at age 73 may be at a slightly higher risk of becoming lonely. However, we did not find support for the hypothesis that loneliness causes a decline in cognitive health.

Submitted by Guilherme Lemeszenski (guilherme@nead.unesp.br) on 2013-08-22T19:04:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 S1413-85572008000200002.pdf: 134945 bytes, checksum: 871417df2c1787a57ef1ed6b57bc2c69 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2013-08-22T19:04:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 S1413-85572008000200002.pdf: 134945 bytes, checksum: 871417df2c1787a57ef1ed6b57bc2c69 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-12-01 Made available in DSpace on 2013-09-30T20:06:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 S1413-85572008000200002.pdf: 134945 bytes, checksum: 871417df2c1787a57ef1ed6b57bc2c69 (MD5) S1413-85572008000200002.pdf.txt: 28851 bytes, checksum: 68f81228d2ac3f681530ef652a96d694 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-12-01 Submitted by Vitor Silverio Rodrigues (vitorsrodrigues@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2014-05-20T15:17:00Z No. of bitstreams: 2 S1413-85572008000200002.pdf: 134945 bytes, checksum: 871417df2c1787a57ef1ed6b57bc2c69 (MD5) S1413-85572008000200002.pdf.txt: 28851 bytes, checksum: 68f81228d2ac3f681530ef652a96d694 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2014-05-20T15:17:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 S1413-85572008000200002.pdf: 134945 bytes, checksum: 871417df2c1787a57ef1ed6b57bc2c69 (MD5) S1413-85572008000200002.pdf.txt: 28851 bytes, checksum: 68f81228d2ac3f681530ef652a96d694 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-12-01 Neste trabalho descreve-se a construção, a aplicação e os resultados obtidos numa bateria de exercícios informatizados para treinamento da visualização espacial de estudantes de Engenharia. A bateria contém quatro exercícios baseados em tarefas muito comuns do ensino fundamental de desenho técnico. Cada exercício é composto por 18 itens com quatro opções de respostas das quais apenas uma é correta. Após responder a cada item o aluno recebe um feed-back imediato, com a demonstração da precisão da sua resposta. O formato de resposta dos exercícios denomina-se Responder até acertar, uma vez que se a resposta é incorreta, o aluno recebe a informação da pontuação obtida. Para avaliar a influencia do treinamento na visualização espacial foram administrados testes dessa aptidão no começo e no final do curso de desenho técnico. As figuras dos exercícios e os testes foram construídas com AutoCad e a programação foi realizada com Revolution Studio 2. Utilizaram-se vários modelos para obter as medidas: Partial Credit Model (Masters, 1982) e Rasch Model (Rasch, 1960). Observou-se que os alunos apresentaram uma melhora moderada em visualização espacial. This work describes the construction, application and results obtained with a battery of computerized exercises for training Spatial Visualization in engineering students. The battery contains four exercises based on very common tasks in the basic teaching of Technical Drawing. Each exercise is composed of 18 items with four options to answer from, only one of which is correct. After answering each item, the student receives immediate feedback of whether the answer is right or wrong. The response format of the exercises is called Answer-Until-Correct, because if the answer the student gives is incorrect, he or she must keep on seeking the right answer. When the test is over, the student receives information on the score obtained. To assess the effectiveness of the training in Spatial Visualization, tests in this ability, scaled in the same metrics, were administered at the beginning and end of a Technical Drawing course. The figures of the exercises and tests were constructed with AutoCad and programming was carried out with Revolution Studio 2. Two models were used to obtain the measures: the Partial Credit Model [1] and the Rasch Model [2]. It was observed that, on average, the students' improvement in Spatial Visualization was moderate. En este trabajo se describe la construcción, la aplicación y los resultados obtenidos con una batería de ejercicios informatizados para entrenar la Visualización Espacial de estudiantes de Ingeniería. La batería contiene cuatro ejercicios basados en tareas muy comunes en la enseñanza básica del Dibujo Técnico. Cada ejercicio se compone de 18 ítems con cuatro opciones de respuestas de las que una es correcta. Tras la respuesta a cada ítem, el alumno recibe feed-back inmediato y con demostración de la precisión de su respuesta. El formato de respuesta de los ejercicios se denomina Responder hasta acertar, dado que si la respuesta fue incorrecta, el alumno debe buscar de nuevo la solución. Al terminar la prueba, el alumno recibe información sobre la puntuación obtenida. Para evaluar la influencia del entrenamiento en la Visualización Espacial, se administraron tests de esa aptitud, escalados en la misma métrica, al comienzo y al final del curso de Dibujo Técnico. Las figuras de los ejercicios y los tests fueron construidas con AutoCad y la programación fue realizada con Revolution Studio 2. Se utilizaron varios modelos para obtener las medidas: Partial Credit Model (Masters, 1982) y Rasch Model (Rasch, 1960). Se observó que, en promedio, la mejora de los alumnos en Visualización Espacial fue moderada. Universidad de Salamanca Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho

Williams Syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of known genetic origin, characterized by serious delays in language onset yet relatively verbose, intelligible and fluent speech in late childhood and adulthood. How do motor abilities relate to language in this group? We investigated planning and co-ordination of the movement of the speech articulators (oromotor praxis) in 28 fluent-speaking individuals with WS, aged between 12 and 30 years. Results indicate that, despite their fluent language, oromotor praxis was impaired in WS relative to two groups of typically-developing children, matched on either vocabulary or visuospatial ability. These findings suggest that the ability to plan, co-ordinate and execute complex sensorimotor movements contribute to an explanation of the delay in expressive language early in development in this neurodevelopmental disorder. In the discussion, we turn to more general issues of how individual variation in oromotor praxis may account for differences in speech/language production abilities across developmental language disorders.

Background.Visuospatial dysfunction is among the first cognitive symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and is often predictive for PD-dementia. Furthermore, cognitive status in PD-patients correlates with quantitative EEG. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the correlation between EEG slowing and visuospatial ability in nondemented PD-patients.Methods.Fifty-seven nondemented PD-patients (17 females/40 males) were evaluated with a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery and a high-resolution 256-channel EEG was recorded. A median split was performed for each cognitive test dividing the patients sample into either a normal or lower performance group. The electrodes were split into five areas: frontal, central, temporal, parietal, and occipital. A linear mixed effects model (LME) was used for correlational analyses and to control for confounding factors.Results.Subsequently, for the lower performance, LME analysis showed a significant positive correlation between ROCF score and parietal alpha/theta ratio (b=.59,p=.012) and occipital alpha/theta ratio (b=0.50,p=.030). No correlations were found in the group of patients with normal visuospatial abilities.Conclusion.We conclude that a reduction of the parietal alpha/theta ratio is related to visuospatial impairments in PD-patients. These findings indicate that visuospatial impairment in PD-patients could be influenced by parietal dysfunction.

Gender differences in cognitive and behavioral performance have been reported throughout the psychological literature. Consequently, gender differences should be considered and controlled for when cognitive research is conducted in virtual environments (VEs). These variables may include gender-related differences in cognitive performance, susceptibility for cybersickness, and the impact of sex hormones on cognition. Such issues are addressed in the context of a recent VE study of the visuospatial ability referred to as mental rotation. The Mental Rotation Test (MRT), a paper and pencil measure, has been shown to produce one of the largest gender differences in the cognitive literature. The outcomes of the MRT are in favor of males. However, results reported from a Virtual Reality Spatial Rotation (VRSR) test demonstrate no gender differences when subjects were able to manually manipulate the stimuli in a VE. Further analysis uncovers gender differences in the patterns of associations between verbal and spatial tasks and performance on VRSR. Results are discussed in terms of dimensionality factors and hemispheric lateralization.

The factor structure of verbal, logical, visuospatial, and mathematical ability was compared for responses from 52 male and 54 female college students. Separate verbal, quantitative, and visuospatial factors were isolated among males while compound verbal-mathematical-visuospatial and verbal-logical-field dependence factors were isolated among females. The data supported the hypothesis of sex-related differences in the factorial organization of verbal, mathematical, reading, writing, and visuospatial ability.

CONNOR, JANE M., and SERBIN, LISA A. Behaviorally Based Masculineand Feminine-ActivityPreference Scales for Preschoolers: Correlates with Other Classroom Behaviors and Cognitive Tests. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 1411-1416. 2 sets of scales were developed designed to measure the strength of sex typing in children's play patterns in a naturalistic setting. Over a 12-week observational period, the scales based upon those activities showing a sex difference in play preferences appeared to be more stable than those scales based upon adult ratings of masculine and feminine activities. Masculine and feminine activity preferences, as measured by the more stable scales, were correlated with observational measures of other classroom behavior and performance on 3 cognitive tests. These results suggested that (a) many children have already learned to avoid opposite-sex activities by the time they enter nursery school; (b) sex-role learning during the preschool period appears to involve increasing attention to samesex activities; and (c) the development of visual-spatial ability in boys is related to involvement in masculine activities. The advantages of a behaviorally based definition of masculine and feminine activity preference are discussed.