Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 25, 2026

Dynamic Visual Tests to Identify and Quantify Visual Damage and Repair Following Demyelination in Optic Neuritis Patients
Published on: April 14, 2014
Measuring palinopsia: characteristics of a persevering visual sensation from cerebral pathology
S Van der Stigchel1, T C W Nijboer, D P Bergsma
1Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. S.VanderStigchel@uu.nl
Abstract:
Palinopsia is an abnormal perseverative visual phenomenon, whose relation to normal afterimages is unknown. We measured palinoptic positive visual afterimages in a patient with a cerebral lesion. Positive afterimages were confined to the left inferior quadrant, which allowed a comparison between afterimages in the intact and the affected part of his visual field. Results showed that negative afterimages in the affected quadrant were no different from those in the unaffected quadrant. The positive afterimage in his affected field, however, differed both qualitatively and quantitatively from normal afterimages, being weaker but much more persistent, and displaced from the location of the inducing stimulus. These findings reveal distinctions between pathological afterimages of cerebral origin and physiological afterimages of retinal origin.
Related Concept Videos
Prosopagnosia
Photoreceptors and Visual Pathways
Visual Agnosia
Perceptual Constancy
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...

