Abstract
Attention is often considered a limited resource that we need to spend wisely, and accordingly resource regulation may play an important role in some attention pathologies. Unilateral spatial neglect is commonly considered a spatial attention disorder, but recent research emphasizes that also non-spatial mechanisms may be affected in this syndrome. The thesis investigates spatial and non-spatial components of attention in neglect and specifically examines patients’ ability to allocate cognitive resources to a task. Eye-tracking measures and pupillary responses during multiple object tracking, as well as binocular rivalry alternation rates, were obtained in right hemisphere stroke patients with neglect, and in right hemisphere stroke patients without neglect and healthy control participants for comparisons. The present findings suggest neglect may involve not only the classic symptoms of spatial inattention, but also general problems with allocation of attentional resources. Knowledge of how our attention systems work, the components and mechanisms involved, and how these may interact, is imperative as it may allow targeted treatment of specific mechanisms in attention disorders.
List of papers
ARTICLE I: Walle, K.M., Nordvik, J.E., Becker, F., Espeseth, T., Sneve, M.H., Laeng, B. (submitted). Unilateral neglect post stroke: Saccade frequencies indicate directional hypokinesia while fixation distributions suggest compensational mechanism. To be published. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |
ARTICLE II: Walle, K.M., Nordvik, J.E., Espeseth, T., Becker, F., Laeng, B. (submitted). Multiple object tracking and pupillometry reveal deficits in both selective and intensive attention in post stroke neglect. To be published. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |
ARTICLE III: Walle, K.M., Kyler, H.L., Nordvik, J.E., Becker, F., Laeng, B. (2017). Binocular rivalry after right-hemisphere stroke: Effects of attention impairment on perceptual dominance patterns. Brain and Cognition. ISSN 0278-2626. 117, 84-96. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2017.06.0071. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2017.06.0071 |