CENTRAL EXECUTIVE ASPECTS OF ATTENTION IN SUBACUTE SEVERE AND VERY SEVERE CLOSED-HEAD INJURY PATIENTS - PLANNING, INHIBITION, FLEXIBILITY, AND DIVIDED ATTENTION

Central executive aspects of attention were investigated in a group of 20 closed head injury (CHI) patients with an average posttraumatic am nesia duration of 23.9 days, tested in the first half year after injur y. Four aspects were distinguished: planning, inhibition, flexibility, and divided attention. Tasks allowed assessment of these with experim ental or statistical control for the individual speed of information p rocessing. This precaution appears necessary because slow information processing is a pervasive effect of CHI and may cause spurious effects on complex cognitive tasks under time pressure. Strong effects of CHI were shown on speed of information processing. Controlling this facto r, central executive aspects of attention were normal, on average. A t entative analysis of the results in relation to severity indicated tha t less severely injured patients are better in this respect than contr ols, and more severely injured patients are worse. In comparison with the healthy control group, the performance of those with milder injuri es appears to be characterized by greater cautiousness and increased m ental effort.