Visual extinction and prior entry: Impaired perception of temporal order with intact motion perception after unilateral parietal damage

• Published in: Neuropsychologia Vol. 35; no. 4; pp. 421 - 433
• Main Authors: Rorden, Chris, Mattingley, Jason B, Karnath, Hans-Otto, Driver, Jon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.04.1997; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Aged; attention; Biological and medical sciences; Cerebral Infarction - physiopathology; Cerebral Infarction - psychology; Electroencephalography; extinction : neglect; Extinction, Psychological - physiology; Female; Functional Laterality - physiology; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Motion Perception - physiology; Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology; parietal lobe; Parietal Lobe - physiopathology; Photic Stimulation; prior entry; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Time Perception - physiology; Visual Perception - physiology; attention; extinction : neglect; parietal lobe; prior entry; Human; Motion; Nervous system diseases; Cognitive disorder; Vision disorder; Attention; Cerebral disorder; Time perception; Eye disease; Visual extinction; Central nervous system disease; Unilateral; Parietal lobe; Lesion
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/S0028-3932(96)00093-0

Two patients with left-sided visual extinction after right parietal damage were each given two `prior entry' tasks that have recently been used to study attentional biases in normals. The first task presented two unconnected bars, one in each visual field, with the patients asked to judge which appeared sooner. Both patients reported that the right bar preceded the left unless the latter led by over 200 msec, suggesting a severe bias to the right affecting the time-course of visual awareness. The second task presented one continuous line in a scrolling format across the same spatial extent, with the patients asked to judge which direction the line moved in. The patients now performed normally. Thus, the perception of temporal order for separate events was impaired by the lesions, but without disrupting motion perception within single events. The implications are discussed for theories of normal and pathological attention, visual awareness, and motion perception. Copyright©1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.