title: Freehand drawing impairments in probable Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: We evaluated freehand picture production of familiar objects in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease. The overall recognizability of their drawings was significantly compromised. Error analyses revealed the production of category violations and the frequent inclusion of incorrect features in a picture that were borrowed from semantically related objects, suggesting difficulty distinguishing between items with overlapping features sets in semantic memory. Analyses of individual patient drawing profiles also revealed that some patients are disproportionately compromised in expressing a particular perceptual feature, implicating difficulty at the level of perceptual processing. Regression analyses demonstrated the contribution of limited visual attentional resources. We conclude that impaired freehand drawing in probable Alzheimer's disease is multifactorial in nature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grossman
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mickanin
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Onishi
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: D'Esposito
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D000849:Anomia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011596:Psychomotor Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012016:Reference Values; D012660:Semantics