A disorder of lightness discrimination in a case of visual form agnosia
Milner, A.D.; Heywood, C.A.
Cortex; A Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System and Behavior 25(3): 489-494
1989
ISSN/ISBN: 0010-9452
PMID: 2805734
DOI: 10.1016/s0010-9452(89)80062-0
Accession: 029644417
Benson and Greenberg (1969) described an “agnosic” patient whose severe visual recognition disorder could be accounted for in terms of a deficit in the perception of shape. We report here on a recent case of this disorder (visual form agnosia), and have found that she performs very poorly on tasks of discriminating shades of grey, although she is able to discriminate between hues. This sensory deficit helps to explain some of her perceptual difficulties; it also provides further evidence for parallel feature-processing in the human brain complementary to and consistent with recent physiological data on the visual cortex in animals.