Pseudoneglect

Pseudoneglect refers to a phenomenon in which people exhibit a bias or tendency to allocate more attention or perceptual processing to the left side of space than the right side (or vice versa). Despite the term "neglect" in its name, pseudoneglect does not indicate an actual neglect of the opposite side but rather an asymmetry in attention allocation.

The term "pseudoneglect" was coined by Bowers and Heilman in 1980 when they observed a leftward bias in line bisection tasks, where participants were asked to mark the midpoint of a horizontal line. They found that most individuals tend to place the mark slightly to the left of the true center, indicating a bias toward the left side of the line.

This phenomenon has been attributed to the dominance of the right hemisphere in spatial attention and perception. The right hemisphere of the brain is generally considered to be more involved in processing spatial information, while the left hemisphere is typically associated with language and analytical functions. As a result, the right hemisphere's dominance may contribute to a leftward attentional bias, leading to pseudoneglect.

Pseudoneglect has been observed in various perceptual tasks, including line bisection, line length estimation, and visual search. It is thought to reflect a normal asymmetry in attentional processing rather than a pathological condition.

Understanding pseudoneglect can have implications for studying brain function and spatial cognition. Researchers have used this phenomenon to explore the mechanisms underlying spatial attention, hemispheric specialization, and disorders such as neglect syndrome, where there is a true deficit in attending to one side of space.