DIVERSE PATTERNS OF PERFORMANCE IN COPYING AND SEVERITY OF UNILATERALSPATIAL NEGLECT

We analysed the performances of 69 patients with left unilateral spati al neglect in copying a multi-object figure, as well as their performa nce of the line cancellation and line bisection tests. Three patterns of copying were mainly observed. The first pattern was almost satisfac tory performance in copying the central figure with occasional omissio n of the elements located more laterally to the left. The second patte rn was omission of the left half of the whole figure, which was the pa ttern expected of patients with typical left unilateral spatial neglec t. The third pattern was left unilateral spatial neglect when copying the central figure, with favourable copying of left lateral objects; t his may be regarded as ''object-centred'' neglect. Performance of the line cancellation test, which requires exploratory ability, was signif icantly better for the patients with the third pattern than for those with the second pattern. A significant difference was also observed be tween the two groups of patients in performance of the line bisection test, in which exploratory ability plays a more minor role. No signifi cant difference was found in performance of the line cancellation and line bisection tests between the patients with the third and first pat terns, in spite of remarkable differences in their copying performance s. No distinctive characteristics were found for any group of patients as regards lesion, age, duration after onset, education, and WAIS sco res. Therefore we concluded that in most of our patients with neglect, these diverse patterns of copying deficits resulted from different le vels of neglect severity but not from different types of unilateral sp atial neglect.