Visual discrimination and attention after bilateral temporal-lobe lesions: a case study

We studied a woman (Case 1) who acquired achromatopsia, prosopagnosia, and memory loss after sustaining bilateral temporal-lobe lesions. Given her symptoms and locus of lesion, the affected area may be related to the monkey visual area IT. In order to examine her deficits, we assessed her basic discrimination capacities in several domains. She performed normally when stimuli differed in contrast, size, or motion. her performance was abnormal for patterned targets, and was markedly impaired when the patterned targets were less prominent than distractors. This impairment decreased with practice. These symptoms partially resemble the deficits that have been found in monkeys with lesions in visual cortical area V4.