Face-Hand Test Responses of Psychotic and Mentally Defective Patients: The Relation of Age to Sensory Errors in Chronic Patients

Introduction  The remarkable observation that many persons do not perceive one of two simultaneous tactile stimuli though each one is recognized when applied separately has been carefully studied independently by Bender and associates¹ and Cohn.² When the cheek and dorsum of the hand are used as sites for simultaneous stimulation, the procedure has been referred to as the face-hand test.³ By this method it has been shown that normal children between 3 and 6 years of age⁴ and normal adults over 65⁵ fail to discern the hand stimulus more frequently than do other age groups. It has also been shown that adult patients with organic mental syndrome³ and mental defectives⁶ make more perceptual errors with the face-hand test than normal adults of the same age. Such lack of percept of one of the two simultaneously applied stimuli has been termed "extinction" by Bender.