Ideation and Memory in the Inkblot Technique after Focal Cerebral Lesions

Abstract

The aim was to study whether an inkblot technique can reveal differential deficits of ideation and memory related to the side and site of brain damage. Seventy-three patients with focal brain lesions and nine control patients were studied with a modified Holtzman Inkblot Technique. The results confirmed the previous Rorschach test finding that left-hemisphere-damaged patients have poor ideational productivity, whereas right-hemisphere-damaged patients have a perceptual disturbance indicated by a high number of diffuse color responses to whole blots. Furthermore, the patients with anterior lesions were inferior to the patients with posterior lesions in perceptual integration and in memory for inkblots. Deficient verbal recall was linked to left-hemisphere lesions, poor recognition and preserved verbal recall being associated with right-hemisphere lesions. The inkblot perception findings specific to the side and site of the brain lesion were unrelated to conventional intelligence test scores.