ABSTRACT
Much progress has been made in the last twenty years both in identifying the mental processes that underlie higher-level cognition and characterizing the cognitive deficits that accompany frontal-lobe damage in patients. As Dunbar and Sussman (1995) note, however, little work has been done to help understand frontal-lobe function by linking cognitive with neuropsychological research. Though our understanding of the role of working memory in cognition has greatly increased, neuropsychologists have only recently begun to discuss the cognitive deficits in frontal-lobe patients in terms of basic processes such as working memory and attention. Thus, while it has been established that patients with frontal-lobe damage often have difficulty in performing problem-solving tasks, until recently little has been known in detail about the role of the frontal lobes in cognition. Recent work, however, has begun to associate functions such as working memory and executive control with specific regions of the frontal cortex. By understanding the roles that working memory and executive control play in higher-level cognition, it should be possible to predict which cognitive deficits should result from injury to which regions. The experiment described here seeks to more precisely characterize the working-memory requirements of one aspect of higher cognitive function, namely induction, by showing the implications that impairment of one particular aspect of working memory can have at the higher cognitive level.
