Stroke is a neurological dysfunction caused by an abnormality in the cerebral circulation. About 30% of the victims will present cognitive impairment three months after the
injury and 10% some type of dementia. In the area of Neuroscience and Behavior, studies have suggested that the N400 component is activated both in semantic choice tasks
and in equivalence tests. The present study aimed (1) to study the learning of conditional relations and equivalence test in stroke survivors with and without cognitive impairment and (2) to verify the occurrence and quality of the N400 component in diferent
stimuli conditions with the presentation of equivalent and non-equivalent pairs, before
and after training of conditional relations and equivalence test. Eighteen participants
(nine in each study) distributed into three groups - Control Group (GC), composed of
healthy adults; And two Experimental Groups, stroke patients without cognitive impairment (GE1) and patients with cognitive impairment (GE2). In Study 1, all participants were exposed to a training structure of arbitrary conditional relations AB, AC and
AD, and subsequent equivalence test. Study 2 was identical to Study 1 regarding the
conditional teaching protocol used, the difference was in the event-related potential records in the participants, before and after the equivalence method. The results of Study
1 and 2 suggest that the teaching protocol used was effective in establishing arbitrary
conditional relations and equivalence classes for GC and GE1 participants but not effective for participants in GE2. In Study 2, the occurrence of the N400 component was ob
served in the four stimulation conditions in the event-related potential records of the
Participants P21 (GC), P23 (GC) and P24 (GE1), in the Participant P26 (GE1) in three
stimulation conditions and in Participants P27 (GE2) and P29 (GE2) in none of the four
stimulation conditions. The results suggest a direct relation between the degree of learning of conditional relations and the formation of equivalence classes with the occurrence and quality of the N400 component. The present study extends the analyzes of
this correlation when conducting the experiments with a population of stroke, with and
without cognitive impairment, having great applicability in the context of cognitive evaluation and rehabilitation.
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