Cultural Factors Influencing Performance on Visuoperceptual Neuropsychological Tasks

Recent years have seen a growing interest in neuropsychological assessment throughout the world. In countries with no history of neuropsychological research, clinicians often use existing tests developed in other countries with a long tradition in neuropsychological research and practice. While verbal tests were viewed as vulnerable to cultural and/or language bias, visuoperceptual tasks were once considered impervious to cultural factors. More recent studies, however, have dispelled this myth [1]. For example, Colombian Aruacos showed significantly poorer performance on the Rey-Osterrieth copy and immediate memory conditions [2] and Turkish undergraduate students achieved lower scores than an American normative sample on the Group Embedded Figures Test, approaching the task with a unique cognitive style [3]. Even within the same country, ethnic or racial minorities may also be influenced by cultural factors. For example, in the U.S., elderly Spanish-speaking Americans achieved lower scores than English-speaking peers on the Benton Visual Retention Test and Identities and Oddities (Mattis Dementia Rating Scale) [4]. Culture-based influences on neuropsychologicalperformance most likely reflect underlying assumptions regarding not only which functions are worthy of assessment, but also the optimal approach to assessing them. More specifically, implicit beliefs and value