The effect of hemianopia on line bisection is not known. To study this
, manual line bisection in 30 patients with unilateral cerebral hemisp
heric lesions was examined. The mean bisection point in a group of eig
ht patients with left hemineglect was biased rightward (ipsilaterally)
, as expected. Among the remaining 22 patients, eight had right hemian
opic visual defects, eight had left hemianopic visual defects, and six
had normal visual fields. Both groups of patients with contralateral
visual field defects had mean bisection points biased contralaterally,
compared with 68 normal subjects. This bias was less than the ipsilat
eral (opposite) bias of patients with hemineglect. Contralateral bisec
tion bias was more evident in those whose field defect involved the ma
cular region. No bias was seen in patients with neither field defects
nor hemineglect. The contralateral bias in hemianopia may represent ei
ther non-veridical spatial representation within a visual hemifield or
a consequence of the strategic adaptation of attention into contralat
eral hemispace after hemianopia.