Understanding Cross-Cultural Neuropsychology: Science, Testing and Challenges

Understanding Cross-Cultural Neuropsychology thoroughly examines the meaning of culture in the context of neuropsychology, focusing on the fundamental neuroscience underlying how different aspects of culture influence neuropsychological test performance, and how that is related to brain function. It explores in detail the relationship between brain activity and culture, and the influence of various cultural, educational, and linguistic factors on neuropsychological test performances across various cognitive domains.

Written by leadings researchers in cross-cultural neuropsychology, the book first introduces the basic concepts in the field. It goes on to focus on the influence of cultural variables on specific domains of cognition, including perception, attention, memory, language, and executive functions. It also explores the implications of cross-cultural neuropsychology in practice, including a focus on test adaptation, the use of interpreters, the influence of acculturation, and the practice of neuropsychological rehabilitation in different cultural settings.

This book is essential reading for neuropsychologists and related practitioners working with culturally diverse clients, who need a good grasp of the cultural impacts on neuropsychological test performance when assessing clients from different cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds. It is also valuable for neuropsychologists in countries around the world who need a means of understanding the ways in which their culture impacts the performances of their clients on tests, which have been mostly developed in the U.S. or other Western cultures.

Alberto Luis Fernández is the Head of the Research Department at the Catholic University of Córdoba in Argentina, where he also teaches neuropsychology and psychometrics. He has worked in cross-cultural neuropsychological test adaptation and development and published several articles on the topic and is currently developing a cross-cultural test (The Multicultural Neuropsychological Scale) whose preliminary results have been published. He has been in collaboration with Dr. Jonathan Evans for the last three years in different projects on the topic, among them the organization of a workshop in Chile and the presentation of a course in the INS meeting in Washington in 2018.

Jonathan Evans moved in 1991 to work at the MRC Applied Psychology Unit (now MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit) in Cambridge. In 1996 he became the founding Clinical Director of the Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in Ely. In October 2003 he moved to his current position at the University of Glasgow, where he is Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology and Program Director for the MSc in Clinical Neuropsychology.