Colour versus orientation discrimination in severely brain-damaged and normal adults

Normal adults and adults with severe, diffuse brain damage were tested on a two-choice simultaneous discrimination where either the colour or orientation of stripes on the stimulus cards was the relevant dimension. There was no overall impairment in discrimination learning by the brain-injured subjects. In the normal subjects, however, the discrimination was produced more readily for line orientation than for colour whereas the converse was true for the brain-damaged group. The present data are compared to those obtained in developmental studies and with other types of cerebral pathology.