Authors:

ROBERTSON, I., MANLY, T., Beschin, N., Daini, R., Haeske-Dewick, H., Hömberg, V., Jehkonen, M., Pizzamiglio, G., Shiel, A. & Weber, E.

Reference:

Year of publication:

1997

CBU number:

3627

Abstract:

The relationships between performance on a non-spatially-lateralised measure of sustained attention and spatial bias on tests sensitive to unilateral neglect were considered in a group of forty-four patients with right hemisphere lesions following stroke. As predicted from earlier studies showing a strong association between unilateral spatial neglect and sustained attention, performance on a brief and monotonous tone-counting measure formed a significant predictor of spatial bias across a variety of measures of unilateral visual neglect. This study provides further evidence for a very close link between two attentional systems hitherto regarded as being quite separate, namely a spatial attention system implicated in unilateral neglect and a sustained attention system. A close connection between these two systems was predicted by Posner, who argued that the right hemisphere dominant sustained attention system provides a strong modulatory influence on the functioning of the lateralised posterior attention system.