When studying neurospychology there are different methods used when testing. One study which is widely quoted is the article on Spatial and no spatial working memory at different stages of Parkinson's disease (A.M. Owen et al). It is one of the first studies to show a difference between spatial and non spatial working memory and this particular article is based on a working memory task. It focuses on patients with Parkinsons disease and evidently, this type of movement disorder affects patients spatial memory before verbal memory.
The article looks at medicated patients against non-medicated patients. Previous studies has shown that dopamine has complex affects on spatial working memory and does actually improve it. Results from the article discussed earlier, suggest that there is no significant difference when testing non-medicated patients, however, patients with mild or severe clinical symptoms, showed a difference. The staging criteria for Parkinson's disease is now assessed using the unified Parkinson's disease rating scale. The difference found from the study, is unclear as to whether the results are because of the particular stages of the disease or if it is in fact because of the affect of the medicine, as dopamine changes the balance of receptors.
The study looks at the CANTAB test which can also be used to measure strategy, It looks at spatial, verbal and visual memory and it has been made so complicated so that the visual presentation is as similar as possible.
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