The neglect of musicians: line bisection reveals an opposite bias

Abstract

When asked to mark the center of a horizontal line, neurologically intact right-handers show a slight yet reliable tendency to bisect about 2% to the left of the true center (Hausmann, Ergun, Yazgan, & Gu¨ ntu¨ rku¨ n, 2002). This systematic error has been termed right pseudoneglect (Bowers & Heilman, 1980), implying a mild, natural neglect of right hemispace, and has been attributed to dominance of the right hemisphere for visuospatial attention (Oliveri et al., 2004). Supporting this interpretation, a recent brain-imaging study reported activation of the right parietal regions when participants performed the landmark task, which is similar to the line-bisection task (Finket al., 2000).