Feature description and categorization of common objects after traumatic brain injury: The effects of a multi-trial paradigm

Abstract

This study investigated the ability to describe and categorize common objects following brain injury. Thirteen subjects with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and 13 noninjured controls participated in this project. The project consisted of 3 parts: 1. A spontaneous condition, 2. A training session, and 3. An application condition. During the spontaneous condition, subjects were asked to describe common objects. Following the spontaneous condition, subjects participated in a multi-trial training session to learn 8 perceptual features. The protocol concluded with an application condition where subjects were asked to apply all 8 features to describe additional objects. Overall, noninjured subjects provided more features than the group with TBI. However, subjects with TBI benefited from the training session, as they were able to learn more features across the repeated trials. Furthermore, both groups performed better during the application condition compared to the spontaneous description of objects. The results indicate that the multi-trial training session was effective in teaching subjects the 8 perceptual features. © 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.