Preliminary Experiment with a Neglect Test

Abstract

This paper presents a limited (six healthy, right-handed participants) preliminary experiment with a test planned for diagnosing hemispatial neglect. Healthy participants were expected to show equal reaction times on both sides. Familiar participants were assumed to react faster than unfamiliar ones. The test included four separate vigilance experiments that were performed on a laptop computer. All participants showed slower reaction times to stimuli in the right observational field. Performance did not increase with familiarity with the experiments. The experiment did not confirm our hypotheses, but the consistency of the preliminary data serves as a good starting point for upcoming larger experiments with patients and healthy controls.