Visual Extinction - Society & Culture

Society & Culture

This condition does not inhibit patients from social interaction. In fact, most people would not be able to distinguish a visual extinction patient from a non-visual extinction patient in passing. Patients have selective spatial interactions, typically within the range of six degrees of the angle of vision. When two visual stimuli are presented to a patient, they can be processed as a single object due to the corresponding neuronal functions which are linked through long-range lateral interactions. Visual Extinction is often mistaken for attentional deficit. Some researchers believe visual extinction may be connected to a restriction in attention capacity. Attention allows a person to identify and react to pertinent objects in space, while ignoring other irrelevant objects. Patients with visual extinction, especially those with unilateral damage to the right parietal lobe, may be unable to attend and orient to objects in collateral space, therefore presenting neglect to visual stimuli.

A delay in reaction time is observed in many patients, but it is unknown whether this is a primary result of the stroke or resulting from the visual extinction. Detrimental social aspects may be repercussions of the stroke, which caused the visual extinction, but not from the visual extinction condition alone.