Visual Scanning Patterns in an Adult Chinese Population: Preliminary Normative Data

Visual neglect is routinely tested using cancellation tasks. On these tests, subjects without visual neglect are expected to use a systematic left to right search pattern and detect virtually all targets (Weintraub & Mesulam, 1985). This premise of normal scanning being systematic and left to right also provides the foundation for scanning retraining, one rehabilitation approach for neglect. However, in an increasingly multicultural society, it behooves us to investigate cultural variations in normal visual scanning patterns. The purpose of this study was to begin to investigate normal visual scanning patterns in a sample of unilingual, Mandarin-speaking adults. The study was conducted at the Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China. Twenty-nine subjects completed three cancellation tasks: the Bells Test (Gauthier, Dehaut, & Joanette, 1989) and two from the Cancellation Test (Weintraub & Mesulam, 1985). The results showed that fewer subjects than reported by Gauthier et al. (1989) started their search with a left top or left middle orientation and fewer used a systematic scanning pattern. Clinicians responsible for testing and treating visual neglect in multicultural populations should be aware that more variation may be seen in performance on routine scanning tasks.