title: Combining language and space: sentence bisection in unilateral spatial neglect.
abstract: In line bisection right-brain-damaged patients with left spatial neglect show a rightward deviation, with respect to the line's physical center. In word bisection ortho-phonological features of the stimulus' final (right-sided) part modulate performance of both patients and healthy participants (Veronelli, Vallar, Marinelli, Primativo, & Arduino, 2014). We investigated the role of linguistic factors in sentence bisection, in patients with and without neglect, and control participants. The effects of information in the right-sided part of the sentence (Experiment #1), and of lexical and syntactic violations (Experiment #2) were assessed. Neglect patients showed an overall rightward bias, larger than those of patients without neglect and controls. The neglect patients' bias was modulated by stimulus type, decreasing from lines, to letter strings and to all types of sentences. In sum, in visuo-manual sentence bisection a basic linguistic mechanism, such as sentence readability, brings about a more leftward appreciation of the stimulus, reducing the neglect patients' rightward bias.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy; Department of Neurorehabilitation Sciences, Casa Cura Policlinico, Milano, Italy. Electronic address: laura.veronelli@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Veronelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Maria T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Guasti
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, Università LUMSA, Roma, Italy; ISTC-CNR, Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Lisa S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Arduino
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy; Neuropsychological Laboratory, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milano, Italy; Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vallar
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011932:Reading; D065855:Spatial Processing
keywords: Left spatial neglect; Line bisection; Neglect dyslexia; Reading habits; Sentence bisection