Visuomotor links in awareness: evidence from extinction

In patients with extinction, ipsilesional stimuli may abolish awareness of contralesional stimuli. Explanations of extinction often assume a serial model of processing in which sensory competition and identification precedes the selection of responses. We tested the adequacy of this assumption by examining the effects of response variables on visual awareness in six patients using signal detection analysis. Ipsilesional stimuli modulated patients' response criteria in deciding whether a contralesional stimulus was a target, and response modality (verbal or motor) modulated patients' abilities to discriminate between contralesional targets and distractors. This pattern of input variables modulating response criteria and output variables modulating discriminability indicates the extent to which attentional and intentional systems are tightly intertwined, with bi-directional effects in producing visual awareness.