When left is better than right: A study of drawing pictures in two left neglect patients

When neglect patients process individual stimuli, such as in reading words or bisecting lines, the side of presentation influences the response accuracy. We report two patients with left neglect who copied single objects with more accuracy (greater number of contralateral details, better preservation of the overall configuration) when the model was presented to the left than when it was in central position or on the right. Both patients performed the task with the right hand, and the sheet of paper was positioned relative to the body midline. This unexpected finding could be explained by two different mechanisms. (1) The processing of stimuli in the left hemisphere could be operating as a powerful cue to reorient attention toward the neglected side. (2) The patients performed the task differently in the two hemispaces: actually copying when the stimulus was on the right, recognizing the object from its right side and drawing it from memory when it was on the left. The results of tests of drawing from memory and copying chimerical figures from different spatial locations were in agreement with the attentional cueing interpretation.