Left-right asymmetries affect the validity of all forms of the Judgement of Line Orientation Test

What is it about?

The Benton's Judgement of Line Orientation Test is one of the most used tasks for the assessment of visuospatial perception. In this study we analyzed the characteristics of the items of the full form, as well as the short forms, of this test and found that all the test forms are characterized by a left-right structural asymmetry that interacts with the ipsilesional attentional biases of brain-damaged patients, that is, the main target population for which the test is intended.

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Photo by Ludomił on Unsplash

Photo by Ludomił on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In this study we shows that the way in which stimulus lines are distributed in all the published short forms of one of the most used visuospatial perception test disfavors right-hemisphere-damaged patients, who tend to privilege the ipsilesional side when processing the test stimuli. This has important implications for the clinical assessment of visuspatial abilities and for research on hemispheric specialization: the massive use of this test might have, at least in part, contributed to the idea of a right hemisphere specialization in visuospatial perception.