The stylus-maze test in neuropsychological assessment

Abstract

A retrospective study was run examining the utility of the stylus-maze test as part of a more extensive neuropsychological test battery. The stylus-maze test is thought to measure learning ability in the visual-spatial realm, making minimal demands on verbal or higher level abstracting ability. Selected neuropsychological test results including the stylus-maze test results were compiled for eight groups of subjects. Four of these groups were defined in terms of location of cortical lesions. These were: (1) right hemisphere, (2) left hemisphere, (3) bilateral not restricted to frontal lobes (bilateral), and (4) bilateral frontal (anterior). In addition, four groups defined in terms of medical history were examined: (1) subjects with histories of chronic multiple drug abuse (polydrug), (2) chronic alcoholics, (3) schizophrenics, and (4) learning disabled subjects. A group of normal controls was given the stylus-maze test only. As predicted on the basis of previous research on the stylus-maze test, subjects with right hemisphere and bilateral cortical lesions were highly impaired on this test in comparison to subjects with left hemisphere lesions and controls. Polydrug abusers were found to be fully as impaired in maze learning as the right hemisphere and bilateral cases which was a surprising finding. Subjects with anterior cortical lesions, alcoholics, and schizophrenics were also judged to be moderately impaired in maze learning, left hemisphere cases and learning disabled subjects were not. The results of a factor analysis were interpreted as suggesting that a visual-spatial perceptual defect underlies faulty maze learning for the subject pool (except controls) as a whole. In addition, a number of methods of scoring the stylus-maze test were examined for their ability to distinguish between subject groups. It was concluded that this test is sensitive to brain pathology of various kinds and is potentially valuable as a part of a more comprehensive neuropsychological test battery. Suggestions for further research are offered.