INVERSION SUPERIORITY IN VISUAL AGNOSIA MAY BE COMMON TO A VARIETY OFORIENTATION POLARIZED OBJECTS BESIDES FACES

Selective impairment in recognition of faces (prosopagnosia) resulting from certain localized cortical lesions has been advanced as an argum ent for a face specific brain module. The argument is claimed to be st rengthened by the discovery of an inversion superiority effect in the recognition of faces by a prosopagnosic patient(Farah et al., Vis Res 1995b;35:2089-2093). The present paper reports an inversion superiorit y effect in the recognition of faces and shoes in a visual agnosic pat ient. The finding raises the possibility that several classes of orien tationally polarized objects, of which shoes and faces are examples, w ill exhibit inversion superiority. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.