Temporal order judgements in neglect patients: Evidence for a dissociation between visual and auditory neglect.
Poster Presentation

Scott Sinnett
Dept. de Psicologia Bàsica - Facultat de Psicologia and Parc Cientific de Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona

*Robert Rafal
School of Psychology, University of Wales, Bangor

*Montserrat Juncadella
Hospital Bellvitge

*Elena Azañón
Dept. de Psicologia Bàsica - Facultat de Psicologia and Parc Cientific de Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona

*Salvador Soto-Faraco
Dept. de Psicologia Bàsica - Facultat de Psicologia and Parc Cientific de Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona

     Abstract ID Number: 95
     Full text: Not available
     Last modified: March 21, 2005

Abstract
Patients with right hemisphere brain lesions often suffer from spatial neglect symptoms that can be manifested in different sensory modalities. It has recently been claimed that an association exists between visual and auditory neglect in these patients (Pavani, Husain, Ladavas, & Driver, 2004). These authors found positive correlation rates between performance on clinical tests of visual neglect (i.e., cancellation and bisection tasks) and various tests of auditory neglect. However, it should be noted that the visual and auditory tasks varied greatly in both response type and levels of sensitivity. We present evidence indicating a group dissociation between auditory and visual neglect that was measured using a common task for both sensory modalities. Patients were required to identify which of two events had been presented first in a temporal order judgement task (TOJ) involving the lateralized presentation of pairs of auditory or visual stimuli. When compared to age and education matched control participants, the patients needed, on average, the contralesional stimulus to be presented before the ipsilesional stimulus to achieve the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS; 190 ms visually and 68 ms auditorily). However, an association between visual and auditory neglect amongst the patients was not observed. Rather, the data suggests an independence between sensory modalities for neglect symptoms.