Main Concepts Introduction to Clinical Neuropsychology
Scotoma Cortical blindness for a smaller region of the visual field opposite the damaged hemisphere
Hemianophia Cortical blindness for the side of the visual field opposite the damaged hemisphere
Blindsight No conscious awareness of perceiving visual stimuli, but patients show evidence that the stimuli are being perceived
Affective blindsight When blindsight patients are able to discriminate the emotion of stimuli they cannot consciously perceive.
Anton-babinski syndrome Opposite of blindsight. Patients are cortically blind but affirm that they are capable of seeing.
Agnosia Deficit in object recognition that cannot be attributed to elementary sensory defects, mental deterioration, attentional disturbances,
aphasic misnaming, or unfamiliarity with presented stimuli.
Apperceptive agnosia Failure to understand the meaning of objects due to problems in early stage perceptual processing: problem grouping visual
sensations into a unified percept.
Associative agnosia Poor object recognition. Doesn’t involve faulty perception. The patient has problems making meaningful associations to the
presented stimuli.
Prosopagnosia Inability to recognize faces.
Neglect Failure to report, respond or attend to stimuli on the opposite side of space to the lesion.
Allesthesia or allochiria Sometimes neglect patients may show a degree of contra-positioning (i.e. patients transfer elements of the stimuli on the left side of
drawings of stimuli on the right side).
Personal neglect Patient has symptoms within the body (i.e. pays no attention to the left leg).
Peri-personal neglect Patient shows symptoms within space outside of the body, to items within reaching distance.
Extra-personal neglect Patient shows symptoms within space outside of the body, to items farther away.
Anosognosia Unawareness or denial of illness.
Frontal lobotomy Surgical disconnection of the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain.
Executive functions Control processes that enable an individual to optimize performance in situations requiring the operation and coordination of several
more basic cognitive processes.
Automatic behavior Does not require executive functions.
Controlled behavior Requires executive functions.
Supervisory Attentional Routine behavior depends on habitual action schemas (e.g. schema for answering the phone if it’s ringing) current situation
System (SAS) automatically activates these routine action schemas.
Utilization behavior Patients automatically utilize objects or other stimuli in the environment. Inadequate control over behavior by the frontal systems.
Environmental dependency Patient behaves in unfamiliar surroundings as if he or she were in charge of the situation and performs complex actions that are
syndrome dictated not by his or her role, but by cues provided by the environment.
Imitation behavior Patient’s tendency to imitate the examiner’s gestures or movements.
Dysexecutive syndrome Collection of deficits typically observed in patients with frontal lobe lesions. Manifestations are diverse, affecting cognition, mood.
Ecological validity Extent to which a task relates to everyday situations outside the laboratory.
Paresis Weakness of voluntary movement.
Scotoma Cortical blindness for a smaller region of the visual field opposite the damaged hemisphere
Hemianophia Cortical blindness for the side of the visual field opposite the damaged hemisphere
Blindsight No conscious awareness of perceiving visual stimuli, but patients show evidence that the stimuli are being perceived
Affective blindsight When blindsight patients are able to discriminate the emotion of stimuli they cannot consciously perceive.
Anton-babinski syndrome Opposite of blindsight. Patients are cortically blind but affirm that they are capable of seeing.
Agnosia Deficit in object recognition that cannot be attributed to elementary sensory defects, mental deterioration, attentional disturbances,
aphasic misnaming, or unfamiliarity with presented stimuli.
Apperceptive agnosia Failure to understand the meaning of objects due to problems in early stage perceptual processing: problem grouping visual
sensations into a unified percept.
Associative agnosia Poor object recognition. Doesn’t involve faulty perception. The patient has problems making meaningful associations to the
presented stimuli.
Prosopagnosia Inability to recognize faces.
Neglect Failure to report, respond or attend to stimuli on the opposite side of space to the lesion.
Allesthesia or allochiria Sometimes neglect patients may show a degree of contra-positioning (i.e. patients transfer elements of the stimuli on the left side of
drawings of stimuli on the right side).
Personal neglect Patient has symptoms within the body (i.e. pays no attention to the left leg).
Peri-personal neglect Patient shows symptoms within space outside of the body, to items within reaching distance.
Extra-personal neglect Patient shows symptoms within space outside of the body, to items farther away.
Anosognosia Unawareness or denial of illness.
Frontal lobotomy Surgical disconnection of the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain.
Executive functions Control processes that enable an individual to optimize performance in situations requiring the operation and coordination of several
more basic cognitive processes.
Automatic behavior Does not require executive functions.
Controlled behavior Requires executive functions.
Supervisory Attentional Routine behavior depends on habitual action schemas (e.g. schema for answering the phone if it’s ringing) current situation
System (SAS) automatically activates these routine action schemas.
Utilization behavior Patients automatically utilize objects or other stimuli in the environment. Inadequate control over behavior by the frontal systems.
Environmental dependency Patient behaves in unfamiliar surroundings as if he or she were in charge of the situation and performs complex actions that are
syndrome dictated not by his or her role, but by cues provided by the environment.
Imitation behavior Patient’s tendency to imitate the examiner’s gestures or movements.
Dysexecutive syndrome Collection of deficits typically observed in patients with frontal lobe lesions. Manifestations are diverse, affecting cognition, mood.
Ecological validity Extent to which a task relates to everyday situations outside the laboratory.
Paresis Weakness of voluntary movement.
