The analysis of drawing from memory performance in brain-damaged patients

The drawing from memory task is frequently used in cognitive neuropsycholog y to investigate visual processing impairments. However, in surprising cont rast to most other neuropsychological tests, the analyses of results on thi s task are most often bused solely on qualitative judgements about the norm ality or a patient's performance. in most case reports, these judgements ar e not made with reference to normative data and ale not made by individuals who are impartial with respect to the study (that is, using a blind rating procedure). There are several grounds for arguing that such analyses are i nadequate. First, seemingly abnormal drawings made by a patient may well be within the range of performance shown by control subjects. Second, judgmen ts that are not based on a blind rating procedure are likely to be influenc ed by knowledge about the patient's performance on other tasks. We describe an alternative assessment procedure that addresses both of these concerns. (C) 2000 Academic Press.