Spatial Deficits and Selective Attention

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on spatial deficits that produce a complete or partial loss of spatial awareness of the visual world after damage to the dorsal pathway of the human brain. Not surprisingly, when spatial awareness is deficient, controlling spatial attention is also compromised. Yet even with complete loss of spatial information of the external world, object-based and feature-based processes continue to influence what is seen. Nevertheless, features may be inaccurately bound to form abnormal rates of illusory conjunctions even under free viewing conditions. There also is emerging evidence from priming studies that conjunctions are bound late in processing whereas features are coded early. How the multiple spatial representations in the brain may interact to influence selection is also discussed.