Document Type

Research

Abstract

Right-left discrimination and finger-localization are perceptual skills of considerable clinical interest because impairment in these abilities is sometimes encountered in patients with cerebral disease (2). With the rather gross methods employed in the typical clinical neurological examination, isolated impairment in right-left discrimination or finger-localization does not appear to be a frequent finding in adult patients with cerebral injury or disease. This is not altogether surprising when it is realized that the responsible cerebral lesion is almost invariably to be found in the dominant cerebral hemisphere. A frequent consequence of such a lesion is, of course, an aphasic disorder which is likely to interfere with the assessment of these skills, since the tasks by their very nature involve some degree of symbol-understanding or symbolic response. Moreover, if a patient with gross sensory disturbances or profound impairment of the body-image is unable to identify the right and left sides of his body or to localize his fingers, the deficits are not usually designated as "right-left disorientation" or "finger-agnosia" because of the presence of the more general disability. Nevertheless, even when these factors are discounted, defective right-left discrimination and finger-localization seem to be rather infrequently observed in brain-injured adults.

Publication Date

1955

Journal Title

Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science

Volume

Issue

First Page

447

Last Page

451

Copyright

Language

File Format

application/pdf

Recommended Citation

Benton, Arthur L. and Cohen, Bertram D. (1955) "Right-Left Discrimination and Finger-Localization in Normal and Brain Injured Subjects," Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, 62(1), 447-451.
Available at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol62/iss1/53

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Right-Left Discrimination and Finger-Localization in Normal and Brain Injured Subjects

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