Unilateral Visual Cueing and Asymmetric Line Geometry Share a Common Attentional Origin in the Modulation of Pseudoneglect

doi:10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70190-4

Cortex

Volume 41, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 499-511

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70190-4 Get rights and content

Abstract

Numerous factors influence the leftward bias (pseudoneglect) in perceived line midpoint of normal subjects in line bisection tasks. Cues are a potent factor; left and right cues promote shifts in perceived midpoint to the left and right, respectively. Trapezoidal lines have recently been shown to influence perceived line midpoint, displacing it toward the larger side. The present experiments test the hypothesis that the effect of line geometry, like that of unilateral cues, results from an exogenous recruitment of spatial attention. Normal right-handed subjects (N = 60) participated in two experiments employing a tachistoscopic forced-choice line bisection task. Experiment 1 crossed the effect of cue position and cue contrast, and confirmed that a significant interaction could be obtained. Experiment 2 crossed the effect of line geometry and cue position, revealing that line geometry and cue location both significantly influence perceived line midpoint, and produce a significant interaction. According to Additive Factors Logic the finding that spatial cueing interacts with line geometry suggests that both types of stimuli modulate spatial attention at a common site of processing, supporting the conclusion that the effect of line geometry itself derives from asymmetric cueing. An explanation for the interaction is offered that is based on the existence of a hypothesized compressive nonlinearity that maps attentional bias to perceptual error.

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These different forms of pseudoneglect may be in part due to different underlying processes. Nevertheless, generally speaking the processes underlying pseudoneglect appear to involve functions of attention and awareness that are predominantly associated with the right hemisphere (McCourt et al., 2005), because right-brain damage causes spatial neglect, a severe deficit of visual attention and spatial awareness (Karnath et al., 2004; Mort et al., 2003; Verdon et al., 2010) that produces pathological biases to the right, complementary to the biases observed in pseudoneglect (e.g., McCourt and Jewell, 1999). What is more, pseudoneglect interacts with exogenous forms of attention in that cues on the right side reduce leftward biases, whereas cues on the left do not increase them (Bultitude and Aimola Davies, 2006; McCourt et al., 2005; Singh et al., 2011; for other attentional phenomena, e.g., Toba et al., 2011).
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Attention is asymmetrically distributed across the visual field, such that left side stimuli are more salient, which causes a spatial bias known as pseudoneglect. Although auditory cues can be used to direct visual attention to a location, the influence of auditory distractors on visuospatial asymmetries remains unknown. We examined whether attentional orienting or arousal effects occur when either left or right auditory distractors are presented during the landmark task. We also categorised participants based on the baseline direction of pseudoneglect. Experiment 1 showed a strong attentional orienting effect. A slightly weaker arousal effect was also observed. Interestingly, these effects appear to be additive, such that infrequent right ear distractors rendered leftward biases non-significant. A second experiment, using centralised auditory distractors, was conducted to isolate the role of arousal. A strong arousal effect occurred, which was mediated by baseline direction of pseudoneglect. Left- and right-responders showed parallel decreases in the strength of attentional asymmetries, as biases decreased in the presence of distractors. Importantly, these decreases were not accompanied by an increase in accuracy. We conclude that both attentional orienting and arousal mechanisms contribute to the cross-modal integration of auditory and visual information during visuospatial processing, with the role of attentional orienting being more dominant.
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Other work has investigated the development of a “pseudo-fovea” (i.e., eccentric fixation) in hemianopia, similar to those observed in patients with central field loss following macular degeneration (Cheung & Legge, 2005; Crossland et al., 2005), and the role that shifts in spatial attention play in the HLBE (Kuhn et al., 2012). While spatial cueing has been shown to modulate line bisection errors in neurologically healthy individuals, with the perceived midpoint of a line shifted toward the cue location (Harvey et al., 2000; McCourt, Garlinghouse, & Reuter-Lorenz, 2005; Nichelli & Rinaldi, 1989; Toba, Cavanagh, & Bartolomeo, 2011), a spatial cueing study in patients with hemianopia failed to find significant modulations in the direction or magnitude of the HLBE (Kuhn et al., 2012). The results of Kuhn et al. (2012) also provide evidence against a possible contribution of a preferred eccentric retinal locus to the HLBE.
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Research ArticleUnilateral Visual Cueing and Asymmetric Line Geometry Share a Common Attentional Origin in the Modulation of Pseudoneglect

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Research Article
Unilateral Visual Cueing and Asymmetric Line Geometry Share a Common Attentional Origin in the Modulation of Pseudoneglect