Sentence completion task in right-brain-damaged right-handers: Eisenson's study revisited.

This study investigated Eisenson's claim (Eisenson, 1962, 1973) that right-brain-damaged right-handers (RBDs) are impaired on a sentence completion task especially when they have to look for abstract words. Five sentences to be completed with concrete nouns and five sentences asking for abstract nouns were presented to 34 right-brain-damaged patients and to 19 normal control subjects. RBDs' performance differed from that of normals on both types of sentences when expected words were considered as the only acceptable answers, but was judged defective only for the sentences to be completed with abstract nouns when both expected words and adequate words were accepted. Moreover, of the RBDs, only 50% performed less well than 95% of the control subjects under this last condition. Factors such as age, education, and lesion site failed to characterize this subgroup of RBDs.