Verbal Problem Solving as Related to Cerebral Damage

Abstract

An instrument, called the Word Finding Test, was devised to evaluate ability in discerning the meaning of a nonsense word through appreciation of its verbal context. This test consisted of 20 items and each item was made up of five sentences. In each sentence a nonsense word was used in place of an actual word which fit the context of all sentences for that item. S's task was to guess the meaning of the nonsense word, if possible, in each item. The test was administered to groups (males and females) of control Ss as well as to a group of normally functioning control Ss. Ss with cerebral lesions, who had also taken the test, were matched individually with Ss in each of the control groups on the basis of age, sex, and education. The results indicated that groups with cerebral damage consistently performed worse than their matched control groups. In total, 66 (94%) of the 70 brain-damaged Ss earned lower scores than did their matched controls. These findings indicated that the Word Finding Test appears to be especially sensitive to cerebral damage in adult Ss and suggest that problem-solving abilities, even in a verbal context, may be seriously deficient in persons with cerebral lesions.