Abstract
The Modified Stroop Test (MST) and Word Fluency Test (WFT) using initial letters and categories were administered to 21 patients with frontal lesions, 32 patients with non-frontal lesions and 24 normal controls. Patients with aphasia were excluded. In the WFT using initial letters, the frontal group showed significantly lower results than the non-frontal group.
In order to assess the degree of aspontaneity, we adopted the time which is required for MST ( Part I ) as used to evaluate simple reading fluency. Using the median time of Part I , frontally damaged patients were classified into one group with severe aspontaneity and another with mild aspontaneity. In the latter group, we found a significant negative correlation between performance on WFT using initial letters and disinhibition of stereotypes in the MST, corresponding to the time lag between Part III and Part I . These results suggest that disinhibition of stereotypes plays an important role in the poor performance on the WFT in the frontal group with mild aspontaneity.
