Sapin L R, Berrettini W H, Nurnberger J I, Rothblat L A
Biol Psychiatry. 1987 Aug;22(8):979-86. doi: 10.1016/0006-3223(87)90007-2.
Affective illness has been associated with lateralized right hemisphere deficits and global cognitive dysfunction. However, there has been very little exploration of information-processing strategies that may underlie cognitive changes in this population. Twenty euthymic, drug-free, bipolar patients and 20 controls were given a series of tasks to assess lateralized impairment of the cerebral hemispheres and sequential (analytic) versus simultaneous (gestalt) information-processing strategies. There were no differences between patients and controls in tests sensitive to right or left hemisphere impairment or in total errors on a face recognition task. However, patients tended to rely on individual facial features for recognition whereas controls were able to synthesize multiple elements of the faces. Moreover, on a task that required holistic synthesis of multiple stimulus elements (Street Gestalt Completion Test), patients made significantly more errors than controls. Implications for information-processing changes in bipolar affective illness are discussed.
