Category-Specific Versus Modality-Specific Aphasia for Colours: A Review of the Pioneer Case Studies

Abstract

This paper addresses the long-standing dichotomy between category-specific (colour-name aphasia) and modality-specific impaired colour-naming (optic aphasia for colours) in posteriorly brain injured patients with preserved colour vision and language abilities. The data gathered for this paper were obtained from a critical review of the pioneer case studies and the analysis of the author's research findings. A number of easily applicable colour tasks, especially the so-called “verbal-verbal” ones are recommended and are believed to be equipped to refine the clinical assessment of impaired visual and verbal knowledge of colours in the brain damaged as well as to pinpoint the functional defects underlying the varieties of colour-naming impairments.

Key Words:

• colour agnosia
• amnesia
• anomia
• aphasia
• mental imagery
• associative tests