Inferential abilities based on pictorial stimuli in patients with right hemisphere damage: influence of schooling

Inferences are mental representations, formed through the interaction between explicit linguistic information and an individual's world knowledge. It is well known that individuals with brain damage in the right hemisphere (RH) often fail on this task and that schooling may be a variable affecting this. Objective To compare the effect of schooling on an inference comprehension task based on pictorial stimuli in patients with RH lesion. Methods The inferential abilities of 75 controls and 50 patients with RH lesion were assessed through the pictorial stimuli from the instrument "300 exercises of comprehension of logical and pragmatic inferences and causal chains". Both groups were stratified into two subgroups according to schooling level: 4 to 8 years and 9 or more years. Results and Conclusion Highly educated subjects performed better than low educated individuals, both on intergroup and intragroup comparisons (p<0.0001) for logical and pragmatic inference ability.