Darkness improves line bisection in unilateral spatial neglect.

This study was performed to determine the influence of background illumination on the performance of patients with left visual neglect. We examined six RBD patients with unilateral visual neglect, and as controls six RBD patients and six LBD patients without neglect. A luminous line consisting of LEDs was used in a line bisection task under two conditions, normal illumination and darkness. As expected, neglect patients made large rightward errors under normal illumination. Their performance improved by about 43% in darkness. Our results are discussed with reference to earlier studies of space exploration without visual guidance.