Real-world applications in vision and attention: How to help patients find their (golf) balls again

Abstract

The loss of visual function is a common and debilitating effect of brain injury. Such effects include the inability to attend to the contralesional part of space (visual neglect) and loss of vision in part of the visual field in both eyes (homonymous visual field defects). The underlying mechanism of these functional deficits are varied which explains why no one intervention is effective in their treatment. In this chapter, we examine the cognitive neuroscience that underlies visual performance and attention with particular focus on what we know about visual exploration using search tasks in the laboratory. We then discuss how this knowledge has informed the development of interventions for poor visual function and how these can be maximized.

Keywords: Compensatory training; Durham Reading and Exploration (DREX) training; Hemianopia; Homonymous visual field defects; Neglect; Rehabilitation; TMS; Vision; Visual search.