110 Brugger.qxp

Background. Magical thinking, a sign of schizotypy, is accompanied by a decrease in the strength of left hemisphere language dominance and by an inattention towards the right side of space ("pseudoneglect"). We set out to explore whether it is also associated with a pseudoneglect in imagined space. Material and methods. Forty healthy right-handed adults were asked to imagine the contours of the European continent, viewed from a point in outer space directly over Switzerland. After having contemplated this mental map for one minute, they were asked to name as many European countries as they could. All subjects filled in the Magical Ideation (MI) scale, and we split the population at the median scale score into low and high MI groups. Results. The twenty subjects of the high MI group named less countries than those of the low MI group overall, but the difference was only significant for eastern ("right-sided") countries. Conclusions. This study presents preliminary support for an association between magical thinking and right-sided inattention in the evocation of a mental map. We suggest that future studies should make use of tasks that allow a better quantification of left and right in imagined space. The neuropsychiatric significance of lateralized abnormalities in the mental representation of space is emphasized. PSEUDONEGLECT IN REPRESENTATIONAL