Pure imagery neglect for places and objects

Although representational neglect is a well-known imagery disorder, its nature is still unclear and several interpreta- tions have been proposed to explain it. In particular, it has been considered as a bias in exploring mental images (Grossi et al. 1989), as damage in processing environ- mental information (Guariglia et al. 2005) and as a deficit in the working memory system (Beschin et al. 1997). In contrast, the mental imagery abilities of patients with representational neglect have not been thoroughly investi- gated. In fact, it is still unclear whether representational neglect is an isolated mental imagery deficit or one aspect of a more complex imagery disorder, or whether it is affected by the content of the mental image the patient has to generate, to inspect and to manipulate. For this reason, to determine whether two independent mental imagery systems exist for objects and places we analyzed the mental imagery abilities of two patients with imagery neglect using a battery that included tasks of mental generation and manipulation of objects and real places.