Rapid categorization of faces and objects in a patient with impaired object recognition

Abstract

We tested rapid-categorization in a patient who was impaired in face and object recognition. Photographs of natural scenes were displayed for 100 ms. Participants had to press a key when they saw an animal among various objects as distractors or human faces among animal faces as distractors. Though the patient was impaired at figure/ground segregation, recognized very few objects and faces, she categorized animals and faces with a performance ranging between 70 and 86% correct. Displaying pictures in isolation did not improve performance. The results suggest that rapid categorization can be accomplished on the basis of coarse information without overt recognition.

Keywords:

• Rapid categorization
• Object recognition
• Face recognition
• Posterior cortical atrophy
• Visual agnosia
• Covert recognition

The authors are grateful to Talia Konkle for correcting the English of the manuscript.