Irrigacion de conductos radiculares

Cardinal facts. K now ledge of exact cardinal n u m b er facts w as assessed by m eans of general know ledge questions that everyone m ig h t be expected to get rig h t (e.g. "How m any eggs in a dozen?"). For the first 10 questions, answ ers required the production of num ber names above 4. N one of C.G.'s answ ers w ere correct (e.g. days in a w eek - "4"). How ever, in the second set of 10 questions, w hich tap p ed facts involving num bers below 4 (e.g. w heels of a car or arm s of the Cross), the p atien t w as able to get 10 o u t of 10 correct answ ers by using an e n u m e ra tio n strateg y . T hus for the arm s of th e C ro ss, sh e ask ed th e experim enter to hold out her arm s and then counted them .

Personal number facts. C.G. w as asked 20 q u estio n s ta p p in g p ersonal num erical inform ation requiring num bers above 4 (e.g. her shoe size). N one of her answ ers were correct (e.g. how old are you "I d o n ’t know , I am a m iddle aged person").

Non personal number facts. The p atien t was ask ed 20 questions tap p in g num erical inform ation generally know n to all people of a sim ilar background (e.g. the date of Christmas day). She scored 0 correct o u t of 20 answers.

Num erical cognitive estimates. Follow ing Shallice a n d E vans (1978), 10 num erical estim ation questio n s w ere devised. H ere ap p ro x im ate num erical values are required. In none of these spoken questions, w ere C.G.'s answ ers correct (e.g. W hat is the hottest tem perature of a sum m er day? "Well It's difficult to say ... 3, 4 centigrade?").

2.32c Sum m ary

All tests of num ber m eanings show precisely the sam e w atershed as the tests of num ber processing, nam ely a total inability to deal w ith num bers above 4 in any task an d in any m odality. It should be n o ted th at perform ance w ith n u m b ers below 4 w as n o t perfect. It is ex tra o rd in a ry th a t C.G. sh o u ld be som etim es unable to com pare dot patterns, to nam e d o t patterns o r to seriate dot p attern s below 4; and in d eed to m ake occasional errors in a task as sim ple as deciding w hether 3 is or is not larger than 1.

2.33 Subitizing

Arrays w ith u p to four elem ents have a special psychological status: the ability to discrim inate the num erosity of these arrays is ap p aren tly p resen t in infants (Starkey et a l, 1990); and adults seem to assign a num ber to these arrays in a different m anner from arrays w ith m ore elem ents (Klahr and Wallace, 1976, hut see M andler and Shebo, 1982). The basis for the sparing of num bers u p to 4 could be related to the p reserv atio n of the a p p a re n tly p rim itiv e ability to perceive num erosities w ithout counting, if indeed C.G. w as still able to subitize. In the test, C.G. was asked to say as quickly as possible, an d w ith o u t explicit counting, how m any dots w ere in a visual array. The dots w ere alw ays arranged in the canonical w ay (e.g. ::). Her perform ance w as correct only for the two- dot pattern, while for the three-dot pattern she replied "two" and for the four-dot p a ttern she replied "three". H ow ever if she w as p erm itted to count no errors w ere comm itted.

2.34 Tests of arithm etic

The patient had com pletely lost m ultiplication tables and was completely unable to carry out even the sim plest m athem atical operation. O nly very simple problem s involving not m ore than 4 fingers or concrete objects (e.g. "I give you back one of this 4 books, how m any books do I have now?"), could be resolved using a counting back or counting on strategy.

Rapid arithmetical Judgments. Follow ing W arrin g to n (1982), a test w as devised to assess her ability to check the approxim ate solutions to arithm etical problem s, w hich could not norm ally be retrieved from m em ory. There w ere 20 p ro b lem s (5 ad d itio n , 5 su b tractio n , 5 m u ltip lic atio n a n d 5 d ivision), all involving 2 to 5 digit num bers. The problem s w ere spoken an d the p atien t instructed to verify, as quickly as she could, the subsequent solution given by the exam iner (e.g.l5+19=34). C.G.'s responses w ere at chance level (8 o u t of 20), show ing that she did not appear to be able to estim ate approxim ate solutions to arithm etical calculations.