Is neglect a theoretically coherent unit?

Abstract

It is now frequently claimed that symptoms that are usually classified as neglect phenomena, cannot be explained by a single theoretical model. The existence of several types of dissociations (personal versus extrapersonal; peripersonal versus extrapersonal; motor versus perceptual; object versus space representation) are taken as evidence in favour of the idea that there is a multiplicity of neglects. However, the symptoms that are usually ascribed to neglect, although they may be phenomenologically different, all share the same basic structural characteristics. First, they reflect a lack or decrement of awareness for some spatially specified events or features. Second, they reflect the analogical (Bisiach & Berti, 1987) character of the space disorder. Regardless of whether the neglect manifests itself as a deficit of personal, extrapersonal, or object space, the disturbance always concerns the sector that is contralateral to the brain damage. The coordinate system affected is always referred to the viewer.