The relation of anxiety drive level to learning following brain injury of vascular origin

Abstract

Problem The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation of anxiety to learning in brain injured adults, and to determine how their performance was affected by reassurance instructions, additional practice, and variations in task content and difficulty.

Scope The study involved forty patients with brain injury of cerebrovascular origin who were admitted to the neurological service of a hospital in the Massachusetts Public Health system. The patients ranged in age from fifty to sixty six, and in intelligence quotient from eighty to one hundred and twelve. They were evenly divided on sex, but the lateral distribution of lesion favored the right cerebral hemisphere with seventy per cent of the patients having damage on that side, and thirty per cent on the contralateral side. None of the patients had dysphasic language disorders or visual disorders, and at the time of participation in the study all were scheduled to commence therapy within a period of two weeks.

Procedure Patients scoring in the upper and lower forty per cent of the distribution of anxiety scores on both the Buss Anxiety Rating Scale, and the Manifest Anxiety Scale were matched in respect to age, intelligence, sex, and the lateral location of cerebral lesion. They were then assigned to either an additional practice or a reassurance instructions treatment category on the basis of a table of random numbers. [TRUNCATED]