UNILATERAL SPATIAL NEGLECT IN VISUAL AND TACTILE MODALITIES

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a unilateral spatial neglect phenomenon occurs in the tactile modality in the absence of visual information. Ten patients with clinically confirmed visual spatial neglect and 10 normal controls bisected lines visually, or by touch when blindfolded. In visual presentation, the rightward deviation of the subjective midline was significantly more prominent in patients with visual spatial neglect than in normal controls. However, in the tactile tasks, there was no significant difference between the patient group and controls. From these results it was concluded that visual input may play an important role in the occurrence of the unilateral spatial neglect phenomenon.