Visual agnosia contrasted with visual-verbal disconnection.

Serial neuropsychological findings are contrasted in two cases: one with a syndrome of visual agnosia, the other with a disorder resulting from visual-verbal disconnection. Both patients were impaired in confrontation naming of objects and pictures, but the patient with visual-verbal disconnection was able to perform tasks of color-object matching and pantomime recognition, whereas the patient with visual agnosia could not do so, demonstrating a failure to establish meaningful nonverbal visual-visual association. Additionally, the performance of the patient with visual agnosia reflected an evolution from the apperceptive to associative forms of the disorder, suggesting that the various impairments of visual identification form a continuum of related disorders.