title: False recovery from auditory hemineglect produced by source misattribution of auditory stimuli (the ventriloquist effect).
abstract: Right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) patients with contralesional neglect in the visual modality (n = 8) were found to differ from normal controls (n = 8), and also from RHD patients without visual neglect (n = 7), in their ability to identify auditory stimuli delivered through a loudspeaker on the left side. When the same stimuli on the left were administered in the presence of a fictitious source of sound (a dummy loudspeaker) visible in the homolesional space, a significant increase in the identification score was obtained (the 'ventriloquist effect'). The result is in keeping with a notion of a strong coupling between auditory and visual systems. It is attributed to the activation by the fictitious stimulus of the audio-visual map in the left hemisphere. We draw attention to the possibility that the symptomatic relief associated with the above effect could be translated into certain clinical gains over time.
authors.affiliation: Psychobiology Research Unit, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Calamaro
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Soroker
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Myslobodsky