Relationship between Initial Competence and Ability to Profit from Cues in Brain-Damaged Individuals

Abstract

To study the relationships between competence and ability to profit from cues, the effects of premorbid education on current test performances, and whether the ability to profit from cues is uniform across tasks in brain-damaged persons, 62 left hemiplegics were tested consecutively on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Block Design (BD) and Similarities (SIM) tests, under standard and specially designed cuing conditions. Results indicated that the ability to profit from cues is a linear function of competence levels in both tasks. In BD, premorbid education was unrelated to either competence or cues gain. In SIM, education correlated with current competence but not with cues. No relationship was found between ability to gain from cues across tasks. Some significant clinical and theoretical implications from the data are discussed.