Unilateral spatial neglect: biases in contralateral search and fine spatial attention

Contralateral search and fine spatial attentional asymmetries, two aspects of hemispatial neglect, were examined in a total of 91 right brain damaged (RBD) and 40 non-aphasic left brain damaged (LBD) stroke rehabilitation inpatients. Fine spatial attentional asymmetries within a hemispace were found in both RBD and LBD patients on the LAVA figure-match test. This finding is in contrast to Gainotti's hypothesis that such problems in extracting contralateral visual information are uniquely characteristic of RBD patients. Furthermore, the study suggests that the gross search and fine attentional aspects of neglect are dissociable and may reflect different underlying mechanisms of hemispatial neglect.