Day 42 of 150 Spatial Difficulty 7/10
Hemispatial neglect distorts imagined as well as seen space
Quick answer
Hemispatial neglect distorts imagined as well as seen space. Today's question (Representational neglect) asks about a finding from Bisiach, E., & Luzzatti, C. in 1978. The correct option is The left side — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
Bisiach & Luzzatti (1978) asked patients with right-parietal lesions to imagine standing in Milan's Piazza del Duomo and describe the buildings. From one viewpoint, patients reliably omitted the buildings on:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: B — The left side
When patients imagined facing the cathedral, they described buildings on the (imagined) right but omitted those on the left. When asked to imagine facing the opposite direction, they described the previously-omitted buildings — and now omitted the ones they had originally listed. The dissociation rules out a memory deficit: the buildings were stored, just inaccessible from the affected side of the imagined frame. The study is the founding case of representational neglect, showing that hemispatial neglect distorts mental imagery, not only perception.
About the source
Bisiach, E., & Luzzatti, C. (1978). Unilateral neglect of representational space. Cortex, 14(1), 129–133.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
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