Walz JA, Mani R, Alnawmasi MM, Khuu SK.
In this study, we focused on the effect of TBI on the ability to allocate attention in vision (i.e., the use of endogenous and exogenous visual cues) by systematically reviewing previous literature on the topic. We conducted quantitative synthesis of 16 selected studies of visual attention following TBI, calculating 80 effect size estimates.
The study’s results showed that people with traumatic brain injury found it difficult to follow visual direction cues (allocating visual attention) compared to the control group without TBI indicating that the high-level attentional processes are negatively impacted by TBI. This study also demonstrates that a systematic attention allocation task may serve as a clinical measure of cognitive functions in the emergency department.