Visually misguided reaching in Balint's syndrome

Abstract

A patient with bilateral parietal damage leading to Balint's Syndrome was tested on his ability to reach to, and to describe the locations of visual targets. RM was better at reaching to targets than he was at describing the locations of the same targets. Moreover, he was better at reaching to targets when he could not see them, compared to when he was reaching with visual guidance. In a final experiment, we found that RM showed strong inhibition of responses to non-target items, even though he had a poor representation of their location in depth. As a result of intact inhibition and impaired depth representation, he ignored both target and non-target items in a given direction. These results suggest that in RM a disturbed visual representation of space disrupts an otherwise relatively intact reaching control system.