Visuospatial Orienting of Attention in Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Orienting attention to visual stimuli was studied in 13 patients with Parkinson's disease whose responses were compared to those of a matched control group using a cued reaction-time task which measured cost and benefit effects of orienting of attention. Both groups were screened to exclude dementia, psychiatric disease, and other neurological abnormalities. Although Parkinson patients showed over-all slow mean reaction time, responses showed a pattern of cost and benefit effects similar to that of the control group. The results suggested that Parkinson patients are not impaired on visuospatial orienting of attention on this task.