Neuropsychology of Attention;
- Neglect is a deficit of attention
- Allows us to direct our cognition to particular events, objects and places
- Sustained attention = Over long durations e.g., air traffic control
- Selective attention = filtering out irrelevant stimuli and maintaining focus on target
- Divided attention = Splitting attention across multiple tasks
The Nature of Neglect;
- Brain damage to the parietal cortex
- Lack of awareness of visual events in the visual field contralateral to the hemisphere
which has been damaged.
- Usually this is damage to the right parietal cortex will affect the left
visual field.
- Visual information present in this area of the visual world is
ignored or neglected,
- e.g., the food on the left side of a plate, or the laces on the shoe of
the left foot.
- Review paper on blackboard.
- A lesion on the left visual field doesn’t have the same effect, more
relevant in the right visual field in processing attention. This isn’t surprising because
the right side of the brain is used more for attentional processes.
MRI evidence;
- Mort et al., 2003, Brain
- 35 patients with right hemisphere damage from stroke
- Inferior parietal lobe damage observed in all participants
- However, the lesions aren’t always clear and go across multiple boundaries and so
when looking at a particular area is responsible for spatial information within the
environment. So, the lesion method is good, but you need to have a very accurate
lesion.
- Participants were asked to draw a clock face and found that they neglected the left-
hand side of the clock because they have damage to the right parietal cortex. So,
unable to process the left side. Or try and squeeze all the umber in the right side of
the clock.
- Simple prompt to the left-hand side area can lead to them recognising that area and
drawing in it.
- Also shown in the letter cancelation test, e.g. cross out all the H letters. Will only
cross out the H letters in the right side of the paper.
- Italian study asked participants to visualise a street, they only gave information
about the right-hand side of the street. Then when standing at the other end of the
street they could do the same and so visualising the whole street. Suggesting
visualising and reality areas of the brain may overlap.
Malhotra et al. (2004);
- When using eye tracking, they found when looking at a picture they will look mostly
on the right side and neglect the left space.
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