Trunk Orientation Induces Neglect-like Lateral Biases in Covert Attention

The purpose of this study was to resolve a paradox in the literature on the effects of body orientation on spatial attention. Neuropsychological studies have found that real or simulated trunk rotation relieves contralesional inattention in patients with unilateral neglect, suggesting that trunk ori...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2002-11, Vol.13 (6), p.553-556
Main Authors: Grubb, Jefferson D., Reed, Catherine L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Anatomy & physiology
Attention
Attention - physiology
Bias
Case studies
Cerebral hemispheres
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive neuroscience
Coordinate systems
Cues
Experiments
Female
Functional Laterality - physiology
Headrests
Humans
Lesions
Male
Mental stimulation
Neuropsychological Tests
Orientation - physiology
Patients
Posture - physiology
Psychology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Research biases
Research Reports
Rotation
Space Perception - physiology
Spatial Behavior - physiology
Students - psychology
Tree trunks
Visual fixation
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Summary:The purpose of this study was to resolve a paradox in the literature on the effects of body orientation on spatial attention. Neuropsychological studies have found that real or simulated trunk rotation relieves contralesional inattention in patients with unilateral neglect, suggesting that trunk orientation affects how attention is allocated to space. However, in two previous studies, trunk orientation did not affect spatial attention in other populations. In this study, we investigated the effects of trunk orientation on the performance of a covert attention task by neurologically intact adults. The covert attention task allowed the evaluation of the effects of trunk orientation on both the allocation of attention to space and the ability to shift that attention to new locations. As in previous research, trunk orientation did not affect participants' response times (RTs) to validly cued targets. However, rotating participants' trunks to the left increased their RTs to invalidly cued targets on the right and decreased their RTs to invalidly cued targets on the left. These results indicate that trunk orientation induces directional biases in the ability to shift attention. Thus, for intact participants, trunk rotation created lateral biases in the covert attention task similar to those seen in neglect patients.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1111/1467-9280.00497