Perceptual attention in aging and dementia measured by Gottschaldt's Hidden Figure Test.

Gottschaldt's Hidden Figure Test (GHFT) calls for figure-ground discrimination abilities. The aim of this study was to provide a perceptual attention test for the cognitive assessment of demented patients. In Experiment 1, GHFT normal baselines on 190 healthy controls are achieved, and age-education score correction as well as transformation of the original scores into "Equivalent Scores" is established. On the inferential percentile allocation of 45 mildly-moderately deteriorated DAT patients, 65% of them performed in the critically low range of the score distribution. In Experiment 2, the discriminant power of GHFT between DAT patients and healthy controls matched by age and Experiment 2, the discriminant power of GHFT between DAT patients and healthy controls matched by age and education is assessed. Overall correct classification reached 90%. This experiment shows that GHFT in demented patients works chiefly as an attentional task. The discussion is based largely on methodological and statistical issues.