The Big Question

I have refined 'the big question,' and I officially have a theoretical point to my study! It is of course, different from what I've posted earlier, though it builds on the material, and here it is:

I'm finding problems where research has shown both patterns and dissociations when studying parts of the visuomotor system, or other systems, as they relate to neglect (looking exclusively at either motor or visual performance, looking at other modalities (auditory, etc), looking at problems in exogenous (reflexive) vs endogenous (voluntary) orienting)-- but studies seem to show different results sometimes (some studies find that patients neglect mental images of visual space-- an example of a deficit in the visual system without motor influences, while others don't.) However, this might be because many of the studies have such a small sample size, comparing 2 or 3 neglect patients; also, while the areas of their lesions overlap, there is still a lot of individual diversity from patient to patient. But when looking for auditory or tactile neglect in patients, none is found, and this is pretty consistent over many studies. What if neglect might be due to a more general disability in visual and motor interaction, as in, the fact that the two systems are interacting is over-loading attention and causing neglect?

BIG QUESTION: So, if we induce neglect in normals (which we could do using TMS or behavioral training as I've described before), or even just give students a reaction time (RT) task, would they make more mistakes or show greater RTs if visual and motor systems are interacting, compared to whether we use single-modality tests (i.e., exclusively visual or exclusively motor)?

Eureka! Now, I just have to go through the literature and refine this idea, and get it ready to package up sweetly for my appointment with the adviser tomorrow at 4:30.

Boom!