Impaired picture recognition with preserved object naming and reading.

A case study is reported on a left posterior cerebrovascular accident involving the infracalcarine cortex. The patient (HG) exhibited a marked color anomia and picture naming deficit (photograph anomia) without alexia. However, objects were named successfully from either visual or tactile inspection. Despite successful object categorization in several tasks, it is argued that HG's picture naming deficit is dependent on a disorder of recognition (access to the stored structural descriptions for objects). A similar functional impairment can account for HG's impaired color naming. The site of HG's cortical damage implies that recognition disorders can result from a unilateral left-sided lesion.