Elsevier

Neurologic Clinics

Volume 21, Issue 2, May 2003, Pages 501-520
Neurologic Clinics

Review article
Visual agnosia

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0733-8619(02)00095-6Get rights and content

Section snippets

The “father” of agnosia: Lissauer

Lissauer was the first scientist to provide a detailed account of a patient with visual agnosia [1]. He presented his clinical observations at a meeting of neurologists in 1888 in the context of a theoretic framework. He suggested that, from early stages of visual processing, the processing of color, form, and motion might be affected separately as a result of brain damage (as indeed subsequent work has proved; see later discussion of “Deficits in peripheral visual processing”). At the level of

Color and motion perception

Distinct areas of the brain are specific for the processing of color, form, and motion, as indicated by independent neurologic deficits. Achromatopsia refers to the syndrome in which a patient loses the ability to see colors after cortical damage. The loss may be partial or complete and it may or may not be accompanied by other visual defects. Typically, the patient reports seeing the world in black and white and shades of gray [2] but has no difficulty in the recognition of objects (provided

Summary

As was originally proposed by Lissauer, visual recognition may break down either at an apperceptive or at an associative level. At an apperceptive level, finer grain distinctions may be made; the authors distinguished here between disorders of shape recognition and perceptual integration. It is not the case, however, that all patients with visual recognition deficits have impaired perception: poor recognition and naming may also result from damage to stored perceptual knowledge (eg, structural

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    This work was supported by grants from the MRC, Welcome Foundation, and the Stroke Association.

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