PSEUDONEGLECT IN REPRESENTATIONAL<br /> SPACE: EFFECTS OF MAGICAL IDEATION
Journal Title: Acta Neuropsychologica - Year 2007, Vol 5, Issue 1
Abstract
Background. Magical thinking, a sign of schizotypy, is accompanied bya decrease in the strength of left hemisphere language dominance and by aninattention towards the right side of space (pseudoneglect). We set out toexplore whether it is also associated with a pseudoneglect in imagined space.Material and methods. Forty healthy right-handed adults were asked toimagine the contours of the European continent, viewed from a point in outerspace directly over Switzerland. After having contemplated this mental mapfor one minute, they were asked to name as many European countries asthey could. All subjects filled in the Magical Ideation (MI) scale, and we splitthe population at the median scale score into low and high MI groups.Results. The twenty subjects of the high MI group named less countriesthan those of the low MI group overall, but the difference was only significantfor eastern (right-sided) countries.Conclusions. This study presents preliminary support for an associationbetween magical thinking and right-sided inattention in the evocation ofa mental map. We suggest that future studies should make use of tasks thatallow a better quantification of left and right in imagined space. The neuropsychiatricsignificance of lateralized abnormalities in the mental representationof space is emphasized.
Authors and Affiliations
Peter Brugger, Werner Surbeck Surbeck, Tobias Loetscher
Keywords
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