Disorders of Attention Orienting Neglect, Extinction and Balint’s Syndrome
Hemispatial Neglect Unilateral lesion to Parietal or Temporo-Parietal are Patients present with vision problems, but are not “blind” Rather, they fail to apprehend (and interact appropriately with) stimuli in the contralesional field
Hemispatial Neglect E.g. line bisection task
Hemispatial Neglect E.g. reproducing visual forms
Extinction Extinction is a more complicated aspect of neglect Patients fail to apprehend objects in the contralesional field when stimuli are present in the ipsilesional field
Balint’s Syndrome Bilateral parietal lesions Patients fail to apprehend all but one of simultaneously presented objects at the same location Condition is object-based, not location-based Multi-colored dots are properly seen if they are connected by lines
Investigation of Neglect with Cue-Target Paradigm Posner et al. (late 1970s) used a cue-target paradigm Parietal Lobe patients are profoundly impaired only when invalidly cued to attended to the ipsilesional (good) side
Investigation of Neglect with Cue-Target Paradigm Interpretation: parietal lobe mediates a disengagement of attention in order to shift to another stimulus Right parietal lesions tend to be more disruptive Indicates that Rt. Parietal is disproportionately involved in spatial orienting in most people
Attention “Disorders” in Normal Subjects A number of illusions/demonstrations exist that give us a hint of what it might be like to have a disorder of attention Inattentional or “change” blindness can occur when something interferes with the normal attention orienting system Object substitution demonstrates consequence of attending to only one of two objects at the same location