Article

Patients with right hemisphere lesions often omit or misread words on the left
side of a text or the initial letters of single words, a phenomenon termed
neglect dyslexia (ND). Omissions of words on the contralesional side of the page
are considered as egocentric or space-based errors, whereas misread words can be
viewed as a type of stimulus-centered error where the left part of a single
perceptual entity (the word) is neglected. Previous patient studies have shown
that optokinetic stimulation (OKS) significantly modulates many facets of the
neglect syndrome, including the subjective body midline, line bisection and size
distortions. An open question is whether OKS can also influence omissions and
stimulus-centered errors in paragraph reading in ND. The current study compared
the influence of OKS on both types of reading errors using controlled indented
paragraph reading tests in a group of 9 right-hemisphere lesioned patients with
ND, 7 patients without ND and 9 matched healthy controls. Leftward OKS
significantly reduced omissions on the left side of the text in ND. In contrast,
the pattern of stimulus-centered reading errors remained unchanged. In conclusion
egocentric manipulations like OKS only appear to influence space-based
attentional processes evident as omissions in paragraph reading but have no
impact on stimulus-centered attentional processes evident as word-based errors
during paragraph reading in ND.
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