Illusion processing in hemispatial neglect

Olk, B., Harvey, M., Dow, L. and Murphy, P.J.S. (2001) Illusion processing in hemispatial neglect. Neuropsychologia, 39(6), pp. 611-625. (doi: 10.1016/S0028-3932(00)00151-2)

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Abstract

Twelve patients with hemispatial neglect and two control groups were tested to examine the effects of the Müller-Lyer and Judd illusions on bisection behaviour. The studies were designed to investigate whether neglect patients were indeed unaware of the left sides of the illusory figures. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to describe the illusory figures prior to bisection, whereas in Experiment 2, they compared two illusions whose fins, in the critical condition, differed on the left and then performed the bisection. It was found that the illusions worked equally well in all three groups. Interestingly, apart from one exception, almost all neglect patients explicitly reported the left-sided fins in Experiment 1. Only five patients failed to do so but only on an average of 16% of trials. In Experiment 2, six patients made errors in the comparison task but four of these patients did not neglect any left-sided fins in Experiment 1 (with the exception of three overall trials for LC and EdR). This finding seems a good indication that the two tasks differ in their requirements. The comparison task may be perceived as harder as it requires discrimination rather than detection and thus lead to more neglect type errors than the bisection task. In one neglect patient, the illusions consistently failed to work. This patient presented with an occipito-temporal and basal ganglia lesion and the mechanisms responsible for the processing of simple visual features might have possibly been impaired in her case.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Harvey, Professor Monika
Authors: Olk, B., Harvey, M., Dow, L., and Murphy, P.J.S.
Subjects:R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
Journal Name:Neuropsychologia
Publisher:Pergamon
ISSN:0028-3932
ISSN (Online):1873-3514
Published Online:13 March 2001

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