Vestibular stimulation affects dichotic lexical decision performance

Author(s): Henn, V., Brugger, P.

Journal/Book: Neuropsychologia. 1999; 37: the Boulevard Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford Ox5 1GB, England. Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd. 653-659.

Abstract: We report an experimental attempt to shift, by vestibular stimulation, healthy subjects' right ear advantage (REA) in a dichotic listening (DL) task with words and nonwords as stimuli. Forty right-handed men performed the task under two different conditions, once while sitting in a stationary turning chair (baseline) and once during sinusoidal rotation. In this latter condition, every other stimulation was received during maximal left-to-right (i.e., clockwise), every other during maximal right-to-left (i.e., counterclockwise) acceleration. There was a reliable REA for lexical decision accuracy in the baseline and right-to-left trials but not during left-to-right rotation. While right ear performance was unaffected by rotation, there were more correct lexical decisions to left ear targets exclusively during left-to-right turns (one-tailed P = 0.05). Since there were no parallel shifts in auditory thresholds under the different conditions, this effect is not due to any hypothetical auditory-vestibular interactions on a primary sensory level. The improvement in left ear DL performance, although small in our study, is comparable to the symptom-alleviating effect of caloric vestibular stimulation in patients with left-sided hemispatial neglect and interpreted as a consequence of a rotation-induced attentional shift towards the left hemispace.

Note: Article Brugger P, Univ Zurich Hosp, Dept Neurol, CH-8091 Zurich, SWITZERLAND

Keyword(s): dichotic lexical decision paradigm; vestibular stimulation; turning chair; hemispatial attention; POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY; VISUAL NEGLECT; OPTOKINETIC STIMULATION; UNILATERAL NEGLECT; OCULAR EXPLORATION; FORCED-ATTENTION; EYE-MOVEMENTS; HEAD; HEMINEGLECT; REMISSION

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