Elsevier

Cortex

Volume 35, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 433-442
Cortex

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Mechanisms of Spatial Attention Revealed by Hemispatial Neglect

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70811-6Get rights and content
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Abstract

We report performance by a patient, NG, with hemispatial neglect after nondominant stroke, in detecting briefly (200 msec) presented visual targets. NG's detection of targets (gaps in circles) was determined by the location of the target in the space in which stimuli appeared. Gaps on the neglected side of a circle at fixation were rarely detected when circles of uniform size were always presented at fixation. The same targets in the same location were detected far more often in blocks that also included targets presented on each side of the central circle, or in blocks that included larger target stimuli. In these blocks, the window of space in which stimuli appeared was larger, such that the target fell closer to the center of this “window”. These results indicate that the spatial extent of attention, and of hemispatial neglect, can be modified on the the basis of expectations and task requirements.

Key Words:

spatial attention
hemispatial neglect

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