FIGURE-GROUND DISCRIMINATION AND THE ABSTRACT ATTITUDE IN PATIENTS WITH CEREBRAL NEOPLASMS

Abstract

I. THE PROBLEM THE LITERATURE dealing with intellectual deficits in man following cerebral damage is both extensive and controversial. Defects in "intelligence,"¹ "reasoning,"² "synthesis,"³ "planned administration,"⁴ "maintenance of set in the face of interference,"⁵ "imagination,"⁶ and numerous other abstract categories have been reported. The conclusion usually drawn has been that these defects were uniquely due to lesions in the frontal lobes.^1a In most instances, however, this conclusion was based upon the study of only a few selected cases. Moreover, the inference that the defects were specific for frontal lobe lesion was not validated empirically, since few patients with lesions elsewhere in the cerebrum have been examined as controls. The study of a large number of patients, with cerebral lesions in either the preor post-Rolandic areas, has produced equivocal results. Goldstein⁷ Rylander,² and Halstead^1c,d reported that patients with tumors involving the