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Dissociating the neural mechanisms of distance and spatial reference frames

Lane, Alison R.; Ball, Keira; Ellison, Amanda

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Authors

Keira Ball



Abstract

This study investigated if the neural mechanisms involved in processing distance (near and far) and frame of reference (egocentric and allocentric) can be dissociated. 36 participants completed a conjunction visual search task using either an egocentric (deciding if the target was to their left or right) or an allocentric (deciding if the target was to the left or right of a reference object) frame. Both tasks were performed in near (57 cm) and far (171 cm) space conditions. Participants were separated into three groups, and each received transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to a different site; right posterior parietal cortex (rPPC), right ventral occipital cortex (rVO), or right frontal eye field (rFEF) in addition to sham TMS. The results show that rFEF is critical in the processing of each search at each distance whereas, contrary to previous detection results, TMS over rVO did not affect performance for any condition. TMS over rPPC revealed that specialised egocentric processing in the parietal cortex does not generalise to far space, providing evidence of a separation of the reference frame/distance conflation in the literature.

Citation

Lane, A. R., Ball, K., & Ellison, A. (2015). Dissociating the neural mechanisms of distance and spatial reference frames. Neuropsychologia, 74, 42-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.12.019

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 30, 2014
Online Publication Date Dec 23, 2014
Publication Date Jul 1, 2015
Deposit Date Apr 20, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Neuropsychologia
Print ISSN 0028-3932
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 74
Pages 42-49
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.12.019
Keywords Frontal eye fields, Parietal cortex, Spatial processing, Transcranial magnetic stimulation, Ventral occipital, Visual search.

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Copyright Statement
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Neuropsychologia. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Neuropsychologia, 74, July 2015, 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.12.019.





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