The frontal lobes are thought to make a fundamental contribution to fluid intelligence. However, evidence that fluid intelligence is impaired following focal frontal lobe lesions is surprisingly sparse and based on non-verbal tests of fluid intelligence. We investigated performance on Part 1 of the Alice Heim 4 (AH4–1), a verbal test of fluid intelligence, in a sample of 35 patients with focal, unilateral, left or right, frontal brain tumours and 54 healthy controls. We analysed the following variables: overall number of correct AH4–1 answers, overall AH4–1 accuracy and accuracy on four selected categories of AH4–1 questions that assess abilities previously linked to the frontal lobes, namely: synonyms, verbal analogies, numerical series and multistage calculations. We found several significant frontal effects. Thus, in comparison to healthy controls, frontal patients had a significantly lower overall number of AH4–1 answers, had significantly lower overall AH4–1 accuracy and had significantly poorer performance on verbal analogies and multistage calculations. We also found several significant lateralised left frontal effects. Thus, in comparison to healthy controls, left, but not right, frontal patents had significantly lower overall AH4–1 accuracy and poorer performance on synonyms, numerical series and multistage calculation questions. This suggests that the left frontal lobe plays a critical role in AH4–1 performance. Moreover, left frontal patients had significantly lower overall AH4–1 accuracy and poorer performance on multistage calculations than right frontal patients. These results suggest that a left lateralised frontal network is critically involved in some aspects of fluid intelligence and, in particular, multistage calculations.

额叶被认为对流体智力做出了根本性的贡献。然而，关于流体智力在局灶性额叶病变后受损的证据非常稀少，并且基于流体智力的非语言测试。我们研究了 Alice Heim 4 (AH4-1) 第 1 部分的表现，这是一项流体智力的口头测试，在 35 名患有局灶性、单侧、左或右、额叶脑肿瘤的患者和 54 名健康对照的样本中进行了研究。我们分析了以下变量：正确 AH4-1 答案的总数、AH4-1 的总体准确度和对四个选定类别的 AH4-1 问题的准确度，这些问题评估以前与额叶相关的能力，即：同义词、口头类比、数字系列和多阶段计算。我们发现了几个显着的正面效应。因此，与健康对照相比，额叶患者的 AH4-1 答案总数显着降低，AH4-1 总体准确度显着降低，并且在口头类比和多阶段计算方面的表现显着更差。我们还发现了几个显着的侧向左额叶效应。因此，与健康对照相比，左侧而非右侧，正面专利的整体 AH4-1 准确度显着降低，在同义词、数值序列和多阶段计算问题上的表现也较差。这表明左额叶在 AH4-1 表现中起着关键作用。此外，与右额叶患者相比，左额叶患者的 AH4-1 总体准确度显着较低，多阶段计算的表现也较差。