Lesions to right prefrontal cortex impair real-world planning through premature commitments
Vinod Goel1, Oshin Vartanian, Angela Bartolo
1York University, Toronto, Canada. vgoel@yorku.ca
Neuropsychologia
|December 26, 2012
Summary
Damage to the right prefrontal cortex impairs planning by hindering abstract thinking. Patients with right prefrontal lesions produced poor travel plans due to overly concrete processing.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- The left prefrontal cortex is known for planning and problem-solving.
- The specific role of the right prefrontal cortex in these tasks remains largely unknown.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the function of the right prefrontal cortex in real-world planning.
- To compare planning deficits in patients with right prefrontal lesions to other patient groups and controls.
Main Methods:
- Tested neurological patients with focal lesions to the right prefrontal cortex on a travel planning task.
- Compared their performance to patients with left prefrontal lesions, posterior lesions, and healthy controls.
Main Results:
- Patients with right prefrontal cortex lesions generated significantly substandard travel plans compared to controls.
- These patients exhibited excessively concrete thinking and premature commitment to solutions.
- Healthy controls demonstrated a flexible balance between concrete and abstract representations.
Conclusions:
- Right prefrontal cortex damage impairs the ability to process abstract representations crucial for flexible planning.
- This leads to rigid, concrete thinking and suboptimal decision-making in complex tasks.
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