An Examination of Visual Agnosia
Imagine a researcher requesting you to copy a picture. It's a simple task. You move your instrument of illustration across a sheet of blank paper with ease, glancing from the given picture to your own sketch in progress. When you are finished you observe a satisfactory replica and feel a sense of accomplishment and proficiency with the similarity you have achieved between picture and sketch. Then the researcher queries whether you can tell him what you have drawn. You search the interconnected lines, the edges, and the shapes of your sketch but cannot answer what the picture represents. Finally, an explanation is given. You have just drawn a house- a simple triangle resting on top of a square. Your sense of accomplishment is quickly replaced with a feeling of despair.
Visual agnosia is a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize familiar objects (Farah, 1990). Object recognition is the ability to place an object in a category of meaning. Most cases of visual agnosia are brought about through cerebral vascular accidents or traumatic brain injury typically inhibiting sufficient amounts of oxygen from reaching vital body tissues (Zoltan, 1996). There are a vast array of impaired abilities and deficits associated with individuals diagnosed with visual agnosia. These impairments vary considerably from individual to individual (Farah, 1990). Some patients cannot recognize pictures of things such as trees and birds, despite being able to describe such objects or recognize them through other senses such as sound and touch. Other patients demonstrate an inability to recognize faces of friends and family members (Goodale, 1995). The functional impairments experienced as a r...
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When the colonies were being formed, many colonists came from England to escape the restrictions placed upon them by the crown. Britain had laws for regulating trade and collecting taxes, but they were generally not enforced. The colonists had gotten used to being able to govern themselves. However, Britain sooned changed it’s colonial policy because of the piling debt due to four wars the British got into with the French and the Spanish. The most notable of these, the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War), had immediate effects on the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain, leading to the concept of no taxation without representation becoming the motivating force for the American revolutionary movement and a great symbol for democracy amongst the colonies, as Britain tried to tighten their hold on the colonies through various acts and measures.
Rowland, Lewis P. (ed.): Merritt's Textbook of Neurology, eighth edition. Lea and Febiger. Philadelphia, 1959, pp. 630--631.
Rizzo, M., Sparks, J., McEvoy, S., Viamonte, S., Kellison, I., & Vecera, S. (2009). Change blindness, aging, and cognition. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 31(2), 245-256. doi: 10.1080/13803390802279668
Classical theories demonstrating the inattentional blindness paradigm are (1) the perceptual load, (2) inattentional amnesia and (3) expectation.
Prosopagnosia is the scientific name for what is commonly known as “face-blindness.” It is a neurological disorder characterized by a person’s lack of ability to recognize faces (“Prosopagnosia Information,” 2007). What makes a person having prosopagnosia different than a person who is just “bad with faces” is that, with prosopagnosia, a deficit in face recognition in the presence of relatively normal object recognition exists (Righart & Gelder, 2007). This means that a person with prosopagnosia cannot recognize...
A growing number of studies have attempted to support the theory that cats and dogs differ in their personality attributes. Several common factors have emerged across these studies, such as difference among social behaviours. Higher levels of dominance and hostility have been reported among domestic cats (as cited in Fonberg, 1985). Not surprisingly, domesticated dogs are higher in submissive behaviours (as cited in Marder, 1989). Woodward et al. also reflect upon previously held theories of companion animal attachment that suggest attachment is mediated by the needs of the owner and the characteristics of their pet.
Acquired prosopagnosia refers to when the onset of prosopagnosic symptoms occur after brain trauma, resulting in damage to the cortex of the brain from hitting the inside of the skull (Bodamer, 1947). It can also refer to the initiation of symptoms after brain tissue dies (ischemia) such as from loss of blood supply like from a stroke, or a neurodegenerative disease (Villa et al., 2013, pg. 375).
...ce for increased activity in visual areas or the fusiform gyrus, which is connected with color perception. These results have shown that spoken words result in co-activation of color processing areas, but not visual areas connected with the perceptual process of color. Sadly, the conclusions don’t reveal which perceptual or cognitive processes might cause the difference with people with synaesthesia and the controls.
Rowland, L. P., ed. Merritt’s Textbook of Neurology. 7th ed. Lea and Febiger. Philadelphia: 1984.
Research has been done in the area of human-animal companionship and security, and stress management. Due to the relative newness of this field and the difficulties in studying it, most research has been concentrated on the elderly, specifically, institutionalized elderly. Pets have been introduced into these settings in order to minimize the negative consequences of institutionalization. Most research has been conducted on the extreme ends of the continuum, either very brief visitation or therapy of resident pets studies (Wrinkler 216).
We have all at one point seen or read an article of young girls and boys being abducted or simply forced into manual labor. Many reasons have been given as to why child labor occurs in these foreign countries such as: poverty, low pay, and unskilled work. These foreign companies or sweatshops find it easy to simply abduct poor and uneducated children, and force them into slavery for little to no pay and horrible working conditions. This is because there is greater demand for low skilled, and low cost labor that employers prefer to fill with child labor, instead of having to deal with more expensive and less flexible adult employees. Throughout the years there has been an increase in the supply of child labor mainly because of young kids in
A recent neurobiological approach to understanding consciousness, at least on a perceptual level, has involved the study of the phenomenon of blindsight. Damage to areas of the visual cortex often result in complete or partial blindness. Although the eye itself is undamaged, patients report an inability to detect any light input in part of (or the entire) visual field. However, experiments regularly show that somehow, visual cues are processed. Visual inputs presented to the blind field affect the patient's response to stimulus in the normal visual field. Reaction times to stimuli are affected as well as the interpretation of the stimuli. A visual cues presented in the blind field may suggest a certain interpretation of an ambiguous stimuli. For example, the interpretation of the word "bank", presented as an auditory cue, differs depending on whether the word "river" or "money" is presented to the blind field, even though the patient does not...
Young, A. W., Newcombe, F., Haan, E., Small, M., & Hay, D. C. (1993). Face perception after brain injury. Brain: A Journal of Neurology, Vol. 116, pp. 941-959.
But like an exception to every stereotype, my experience with a human –animal relationship is also an exception. When I was twelve, I received a pair of kittens as my birthday gift. I was never an animal lover so I wasn’t too excited to receive it. But as the days went by, spending time with them developed a soft corner for them. Unlike dogs, with cats it’s more of a give and take relationship. You have to spend time with them and show them you care for them to be able to reciprocate the same care and concern for you. The more time I spent with them, the more founder and inseparable I grew of them.
R. L. Paul, M. M. (1972). The Species of the Brain Research, 1-19. pp. 113-117. S. A. Clark, T. A.