Modulation of unilateral neglect as a function of direction of object motion.
Unilateral neglect is a disorder involving difficulty in attending to the side of space contralesional to brain injury. Two recent experiments have shown that task-irrelevant background motion reduces neglect on line bisection tasks; however, task-relevant motion has not been assessed. We investigated the effect of task-relevant object motion on left neglect using a moving cube presented on a computer screen. Subjects responded to cued corners of the cube as it moved across the screen. Direction of cube motion had a significant impact on the magnitude of neglect. Responses to left hemispace targets appearing on a leftward moving cube were equal to patients' fastest responses. In contrast, responses to left hemispace targets appearing on a rightward moving cube were the slowest of all responses. These results demonstrate that contralesional object motion is capable of normalising neglect patients' detection of contralesional targets.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D013997:Time Factors; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology