ABSTRACT
Unlike other cognitive disorders such as those affecting memory or language, attentional deficits resulting from neurological diseases have been the subject of objective, precise and detailed assessment only for the last twenty years or so (Richard, 1980; van Zomeren, 1981). Indeed the assessment of attentional efficiency was, until recently, mainly based on clinical observation (Benson and Geschwind, 1975; Hécaen and Albert, 1978). During the interview or psychometric investigations, the examiner based his/her observations on questions such as: in the course of conversation is the subject able to stay focused on the theme, to fix his/her gaze on the interlocutor without being distracted by some external or ideational interference unrelated to the content of the exchange? During the investigation is the patient able to maintain his/ her attention on the task? Have surrounding noises a negative impact on his/her efficiency? Is the efficiency constant or, on the contrary, has it a tendency to decrease with time? And so on.
