title: A unified account of cognitive impairments following frontal lobe damage: the role of working memory in complex, organized behavior.
abstract: A computer model is presented that performs 4 tasks sometimes impaired by frontal damage: motor sequencing, the Stroop task, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and a context memory task. In each task, patterns of performance typical of frontal-damaged patients are shown to result from the same type of damage to the model, specifically, weakening of associations among elements in working memory. The simulation shows how a single underlying type of damage could result in impairments on a variety of seemingly distinct tasks. Furthermore, the hypothesized damage affects the processing components that carry out the task rather than a distinct central executive.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213.
authors.forename: D Y
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Kimberg
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Farah
mesh_terms: D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009048:Motor Skills; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis