A unilateral defect of short-term visual memory in left hemineglect

Normal subjects and right-and left-brain-damaged patients with and without neglect performed a task of immediate visual memory and a task of same-different judgment on visual items. fn both tasks, stimuli consisted in geometrical patterns, which differed either on the right or on the left side. Only right-brain-damaged patients with neglect showed an impaired performance in these tasks. They performed worse an items differing on the left side than an items differing on the right side. This impairment was more severe an the memory task than on the same-different task, suggesting that a lateralized visual memory deficit contributes Po the behavioural manifestations of left hemineglect.