Anomalies in the laterality of omissions in unilateral left visual neglect: implications for an attentional theory of neglect.
Patients suffering from unilateral left visual neglect may show problems in deploying attention generally in space, particularly in "controlled processing" type tasks (Schneider and Shiffrin), in addition to showing specifically lateralized attentional difficulties. The prediction is made that cueing to the left should result in a significant increase in right-sided omissions because of this general attentional difficulty. This hypothesis was confirmed, and two patterns of results were observed. One group continued to neglect a left stimulus in the cued condition, in spite of accurately reading a word on the left side, while the other group showed a mainly right-sided omission pattern.
Robertson
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I
Astley Ainslie Hospital, Grange Loan, Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K.
D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003463:Cues; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006423:Hemianopsia / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*