PSYCH 345 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Parietal Lobe
Document Summary
Choose one of the following theories, and describe how it explains the phenomenon of neglect following right-hemisphere parietal lobe damage. Attention is biased to the right after right-hemisphere damage, and thus the left hemispace is neglected, because the rightward bias of the undamaged left hemisphere becomes unopposed. After right-hemisphere damage, patients may not necessarily have difficulty moving their attention to the neglected left hemispace, but their impairment is in disengaging their attention from the right hemispace. The right hemisphere is better at global processing and directing the focus of attention, while the left hemisphere is better at local processing and attending to detail. After right-hemisphere damage, attention is captured by local-level information in the right hemispace, and the left hemispace is neglected because the damaged global processor can no longer guide attention in that direction. Rather than an attentional deficit, the symptoms of neglect arise from a mutilated representation of space.
