Dictionary of Biological Psychology
Spared performance on one task with disrupted performance on a different task in a brain-damaged patient.
Such single dissociations cannot prove that the two tasks require independent processes, since differences in difficulty between the tasks could result in failure in one task and not the other. If a second patient is found who shows the reciprocal pattern (disrupted performance on the task the first patient succeeded at and spared performance on the task the first patient failed) then a DOUBLE DISSOCIATION has been uncovered. Double-dissociations provide stronger evidence that the two tasks depend on cognitive processes which are relatively independent in the brain.
DAVID P.CAREY
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