1University of Trento, Italy
2ANCCRI Associazione Neuroscienze Cognitive Clinica Ricerca Intervento, Italy
3ICoN Cognitive Neuroscience center, Institute for Advanced Studies, Italy
4Department of educational sciences, University of Genoa, Italy
5Department of of Neurology, Imperia Hospital, Italy
*Corresponding author:Eleonora Ardu, ANCCRI Associazione Neuroscienze Cognitive Clinica Ricerca Intervento, Italy
Submission: June 21, 2023;Published: July 10, 2023
ISSN 2578-0093Volume 8 Issue 4
Backgrounds and aims: Visual misperceptions due to dopamine depletion could take place at an early stage of the Parkinson’s Disease (PD). However, there is evidence in literature of inconsistent results about visual attention skills of parkinsonian patients undergoing medical treatment. Some authors found some difficulties in PD engaged in a visual attention task of salient stimuli with distributed attention, while it is similar when they have to search for targets among distractors (with feature conjunctions). Other authors, however, do not find evidence of impairments in the visual attention task. We will try to clarify some of these aspects with the results of our research.
Method: We conducted a preliminary experiment to assess whether patients could have a better performance in a “Pop Out” visual search when set in a “Top Down” mode. We then conducted Study 1, in which we administered a cancellation test that separates the motor from the visual attention component. In Study 2, participants performed the Navon test (1977) in order to investigate visual attention style.
Result: Results show that patients with PD have hesitations in the cancellation test mainly due to the motor impairment, not in the serial visual attention. In the Navon task, we reported a narrow and closed focusing style.
Discussion:Let’s assume that these effects could be due either to the low contrast sensitivity in their retinal periphery, or to the excessive protective function of peripheral attentional filters that try to compensate the deteriorated central filters, partly located in basal ganglia. Further investigations will need to follow.
Keywords:Parkinson; Visual attention; Cancellation test; Navon test