Time is an important function that permeates our everyday activities but it has been so far significantly under-investigated in neurological patients. For instance, it is known that right brain damaged (RBD) patients with spatial attentional deficit (neglect) are impaired in both the ability to estimate the duration of an event (Time Estimation), showing a time underestimation, and the ability of mentally moving in past and future time (Mental Time Travelling), showing a deficit in processing future events when they are projected in the past. After a leftward shift of spatial attention induced by prismatic adaptation (PA), both the underestimation and the ability to travel in time ameliorate. However, less is known about these abilities in left brain damaged (LBD) patients. Aims of this study are to investigate: i) the performance (in terms of accuracy and reaction times) of LBD and RBD patients on Mental Time Travelling; ii) the correlation between Mental Time Travelling and Time Estimation abilities; iii) the efficacy of a single session of PA inducing a leftward (L-PA) and a rightward (R-PA) attentional shift on Mental Time Travelling and Time Estimation abilities. A group of control subjects will be involved for comparison among groups.
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Change in Mental Time Travel Ability on the Mental Time Travel (MTT) Task
Timeframe: pre-PA and immediately post-PA
Change in Time Estimation Ability on the Time Estimation Task
Timeframe: pre-PA and immediately post-PA