title: Mental time line distortion in right-brain-damaged patients: Evidence from a dynamic spatiotemporal task.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Time is an elusive phenomenon that is difficult to grasp with our senses. Recent work has shown how spatial representations often lie beneath temporal ones, as shown by a family of spatiotemporal congruency effects. For instance, individuals who have been exposed to left-to-right orthographic systems are better at judging short durations with their left effector and long durations with their right effector than vice versa, a phenomenon known as the spatial-temporal association of response codes (STEARC) effect. In the present neuropsychological study, we aimed to provide evidence that spatial attention mechanisms play a crucial role in generating this spatially organized mental time line.
  
  
  METHODS
  A group of 13 patients suffering from right hemisphere lesions with different degrees of spatial neglect signs and a control group of 15 age- and education-matched neurologically healthy participants were administered a unimanual version of a spatiotemporal compatibility task (STEARC task).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The main results showed that the more a patient suffered from spatial neglect signs, the smaller the accuracy difference was between the left and right side responses for short durations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings corroborate the hypothesis that the presence of disorders in spatial attention affects the left-to-right mental time line representation, especially in its leftward segment, proportionally with the amount of deficit. This study therefore suggests the critical role of spatial attention for the emergence of a spatial representation of time durations.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Medicina Fisica e Riabilitazione "Gervasutta"
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marin
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological and Movement Sciences, Neurology Section, University of Verona.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pitteri
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital of Padova.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Della Puppa
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Istituto di Ricerca e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, San Camillo Hospital.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Meneghello
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Medicina Fisica e Riabilitazione "Gervasutta"
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Biasutti
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Istituto di Ricerca e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, San Camillo Hospital.
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Priftis
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience and Centro di Neuroscienze Cognitive, University of Padova.
authors.forename: Antonino
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vallesi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D013028:Space Perception; D020521:Stroke / Q000523:psychology; D013998:Time Perception