Visual Neglect
Visual neglect (also called hemispatial neglect or unilateral spatial neglect) differs from hemianopia in that it is a perceptual deficit rather than a visual one. Unlike patients with hemianopia who actually don't see, those with visual neglect have no trouble seeing but are impaired in attending to and processing the visual information they receive. Whereas hemianopia can be assuaged by allowing patients to move their eyes around a visual scene (ensuring that the entire scene makes it into their intact visual field), neglect cannot. Neglect can also apply to auditory or tactile stimuli and can even leave a patient unaware of one side of his or her own body.
Ellis and Young (1998) showed that neglect can also affect patients' mental maps such that if they are asked to picture themselves standing in a familiar location and name the buildings around them, they will neglect to name the buildings on their impaired side but will be able to name them when asked to mentally face the opposite direction.
Some patients with neglect also have hemianopia, however the two often occur independent of one another.
Read more about this topic: Hemianopsia
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