IMPLICIT ASSOCIATIVE PRIMING IN A PATIENT WITH LEFT VISUAL NEGLECT

Recent studies have suggested that patients with visual neglect may pr ocess, even if without awareness, perceptual features of the neglected stimuli. The aim of the current study was to further investigate whet her the ignored stimuli are processed at a deeper level. Findings from a patient with damage to the right hemisphere and with left visual ne glect (no hemianopia) are reported. He showed an associative priming i n the neglected space: response to a word in the right visual field wa s faster when the word was preceded by the brief presentation of an as sociated word in the neglected field. When obliged to orient attention to the left side of a computer screen, he was not able to detect the presence of, to read aloud, or to judge the lexical status and semanti c content of left-sided stimuli. This patient was able to perform a co vert post-perceptual processing of the neglected stimuli, but could no t do so when explicitly requested.