Elsevier

Neuropsychologia

Volume 31, Issue 8, August 1993, Pages 761-773
Neuropsychologia

The role of right side objects in left side neglect: A dissociation between perceptual and directional motor neglect

https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(93)90127-LGet rights and content

Abstract

Based on a test introduced by Tegnér and Levander, Brain114, 1943–1951, 1991, right brain-damaged patients were assigned to a group with unilateral perceptual neglect and a group with directional motor neglect. Brain scans showed that all directional motor neglect patients had frontal lesions, whereas in perceptual neglect patients the frontal lobes were always spared. All patients were asked to execute two tasks, which were also administered to a control group. One task consisted in pointing to tokens symmetrically distributed on a display. The other task consisted in picking up the same tokens. The tasks were first executed with the aid of vision and then in a blindfolded condition. In the case of patients with perceptual neglect, performance on the left side was better in the pick-up task than in the pointing task and improved in the blindfolded condition. Neither patients with directional motor neglect nor control patients showed these effects. The results were explained in terms of the hyperattentional hypothesis of perceptual neglect, according to which, in this form of neglect, attention is captured by the objects that lie on the right side of space.

References (36)

  • M.J. Riddoch et al.

    The effect of cuing on unilateral neglect

    Neuropsychologia

    (1983)
  • G. Vallar et al.

    The anatomy of unilateral neglect after right hemisphere stroke lesions. A clinical CT/Scan correlation study in man

    Neuropsychologia

    (1986)
  • M.L. Albert

    A simple test of visual neglect

    Neurology

    (1973)
  • E. Bisiach et al.

    Perceptual and premotor factors of unilateral neglect

    Neurology

    (1990)
  • F. Chedru

    Space representation in unilateral spatial neglect

    J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat.

    (1976)
  • H.B. Coslett et al.

    Directional hypokinesia and hemispatial inattention in neglect

    Brain

    (1990)
  • E. De Renzi

    Disorders of Space Exploration and Cognition

    (1982)
  • L. Diller et al.

    Hemi-inattention in rehabilitation: The evolution of a rational remediation program

  • Cited by (56)

    • Evaluating visual bias and effect of proprioceptive feedback in unilateral neglect

      2010, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience
      Citation Excerpt :

      De Renzi et al. found that, in patients with left neglect, attention is magnetically attracted by stimuli presented to the right side.8 Ladavas et al. found that patients with left neglect were faster to respond to targets on their right than to those in the relative left position.9 In contrast to these attentional explanations of spatial neglect, other researchers have proposed that neglect is a supramodal deficit rather than an input-related deficit.

    • The role of automatic orienting of attention towards ipsilesional stimuli in non-visual (tactile and auditory) neglect: A critical review

      2010, Cortex
      Citation Excerpt :

      The claim that the visual modality has an important influence on the spatial orienting of attention is confirmed when the severity of neglect is compared in the visual and the tactile modalities in studies in which neglect has been investigated with the same research paradigm under visual control and with patients blindfolded. Neglect was, indeed, more severe under visual control than in the absence of vision in 7 out of the 10 studies reported in Table 3 (Chedru, 1976; Gentilini et al., 1989; Fujii et al., 1991; Hjaltason et al., 1993; Làdavas et al., 1993; Chokron et al., 2002a, 2002b; Schindler et al., 2006). Furthermore, a systematic comparison of the results obtained with and without the influence of vision was made in only one (Caneman et al., 1992) of the three other investigations in which greater severity of visual neglect was not reported, and in this study the hand used for the tactile task was not reported.

    • Is the Posner Reaction Time Test More Accurate Than Clinical Tests in Detecting Left Neglect in Acute and Chronic Stroke?

      2009, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
      Citation Excerpt :

      We recorded before and after demonstration total misses and left to right difference. The shape test36 was intended to identify patients whose neglect might be a result of difficulty disengaging their attention from the ipsilesional field. Patients were to touch 16 colored wooden shapes arrayed on a felt board, presented in peripersonal space, under 4 randomly ordered conditions.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text