ABSTRACT
Vision enables us to perceive a world composed of meaningful objects and events, track those events as they take place in front of our eyes, and read. Vision provides accurate spatial information for actions such as reaching for, or avoiding objects and provides colour and texture that can help to camouflage objects against their background, and so forth. Neuropsychological studies of vision typically attempt to understand the visual impairments caused by lesions to specific areas of the brain. One of the basic tenets of neuropsychological research is that dissociations between processes are more informative than associated deficits. Temporal lesions can impair processes concerned with object recognition and naming. Accordingly, one might argue that the occipital cortex is the site of early visual processing, the parietal cortex the site of visual orienting, and the temporal cortex the site of object recognition. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
