brain, spinal cord, and nerve disorders
Agnosia
Symptoms of Agnosia
Symptoms of agnosia vary based on which areas of the brain are damaged. Agnosia can involve any of the senses: Hearing (auditory agnosia): People cannot identify objects based on sound. For example, they cannot identify a telephone when they hear it ring. This type of agnosia results from damage to the Cerebrum . Taste (gustatory agnosia): People cannot identify tastes even though they can experience them. This type results from damage to the temporal lobe. Smell (olfactory agnosia): As in gustatory agnosia, people cannot identify odors even though they can experience them. Olfactory agnosia may result from damage to the front part of the temporal lobe. Touch (somatosensory agnosia): For example, people have difficulty identifying a familiar object (such as a key or safety pin) that is placed in their hand. However, when they look at the object, they immediately recognize and can identify it. This type of agnosia results from damage to the Cerebrum . Sight (visual agnosia): People cannot recognize common objects (such as a spoon or a pencil) even though they can see these things, but they recognize them when they touch the objects. Visual agnosia results from damage to the Cerebrum . Typically, only one sense is affected. In some types of agnosia, only specific processes within a sense are affected. They include the following: Prosopagnosia:People cannot recognize familiar faces. Environmental agnosia:People cannot recognize familiar places. Achromatopsia:People become color blind. Anosognosia:People insist that nothing is wrong or ignore the problem, even when one side of their body is paralyzed. Simultanagnosia:People cannot see more than one object or part of an object at a time. If they look at a table with food and various utensils on it, they may say they see only a spoon. 