Abstract
Simultanagnosia is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a restriction of visuospatial attention. In addition, patients are able to identify local elements of a scene, but not the global whole. This may be due to a failure to scan and assemble local elements into a global whole (i.e. connect-the-dots). We monitored the eye movements of a simultanagnosic patient while she identified local and global elements of hierarchical letters. Scanning each local element was not necessary, nor sufficient, for successful global level identification. Our results argue against a connect-the-dots strategy of global identification and suggest that residual global processing may be occurring.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1901-1908 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Vision Research |
Volume | 49 |
Issue number | 14 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2009 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:KD was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR). AK was supported by NSERC, a MSFHR Senior Scholar award, the Human Early Learning Partnership, and the Hampton Foundation. JB was supported by a Canada Research Chair and MSFHR Senior Scholarship. WB was supported by NSERC. Thank you to SL for time and dedication to this project.
Keywords
- Attention
- Balint syndrome
- Eye movements
- Perception
- Simultanagnosia