Cogn Neurosci. 2010 Sep;1(3):155-64. doi: 10.1080/17588921003605376. Epub 2010 Mar 01.

Biased figure-ground assignment affects conscious object recognition in spatial neglect.

Cognitive neuroscience

Ranmalee Eramudugolla, Jon Driver, Jason B Mattingley

PMID: 24168332 DOI: 10.1080/17588921003605376

Abstract

Unilateral spatial neglect is a disorder of attention and spatial representation, in which early visual processes such as figure-ground segmentation have been assumed to be largely intact. There is evidence, however, that the spatial attention bias underlying neglect can bias the segmentation of a figural region from its background. Relatively few studies have explicitly examined the effect of spatial neglect on processing the figures that result from such scene segmentation. Here, we show that a neglect patient's bias in figure-ground segmentation directly influences his conscious recognition of these figures. By varying the relative salience of figural and background regions in static, two-dimensional displays, we show that competition between elements in such displays can modulate a neglect patient's ability to recognise parsed figures in a scene. The findings provide insight into the interaction between scene segmentation, explicit object recognition, and attention.

Publication Types

• Journal Article