Visual gnosias refer to the ability to perceive an object through our vision, to represent it and grasp its meaning.

What are visual gnosias?

Visual gnosias are simply a term that defines the ability to recognize objects through sight.

What you need to know is that there are 2 major cerebral visual pathways:

• The“WHAT” channel specializes in the visual identification of objects. It extracts visual information from stimuli and processes it with the aim of recognizing and assigning meaning.
• The“WHERE” channel which locates objects in space.

When there is a brain lesion in one of these 2 pathways, this can lead to disorders affecting either object recognition or object localization. When there is a disorder in one of the two pathways, we speak of visual agnosia.

Visual gnosis disorders

Visual agnosias are defined as the inability to recognize people or objects when presented visually. In order to conclude that there is visual agnosia, recognition in other modalities must be preserved. For example, with touch, i.e. by touching the object, or with hearing, by hearing the noise it makes.

There are two types of visual agnosia:

Associative visual agnosia, which is the inability to recognize what one perceives correctly; perception is correct but devoid of meaning. For example, you can copy a drawing, but you don’t recognize what you’re copying.

Perceptive visual agnosia, which is the inability to recognize what one sees due to perceptual deficits, no longer makes any sense. For example, we are unable to copy a drawing.

Exercises to train and improve visual gnosis

To improve your visual gnostic abilities, try observing your surroundings. Look for every possible detail in an object, person or place. Concentrate on shapes, sizes and colors.

You can also think about the distance between objects or their positions in space. Then try to remember what you saw, without having the model in front of you. Do you remember all the details?

You can also do the opposite exercise. Think of an object you have at home, and try to create a mental image of it. Then take the object in question and see if it differs from what you’ve just imagined.

• Around the world
• Twins
• Puzzle Plus
• Silly Sequence
• Wild card
• Colorform
• Mock
• ShapeBox
• Clint the pirate

Visual gnosias are therefore very important for moving around in the environment and interacting with others or with objects. Visual gnosias are necessary for 3 functions:

1. Identification of objects and people

This function enables us to recognize an object by looking at it. Recognizing an object enables us to prepare for action, to know how to use an object and to adapt to the environment around us. We can also recognize people and know their names, and remember shared experiences.

2. Object and environment analysis

To move around and interact with the environment, we need to be able to analyze the objects around us. So we can imagine an object’s size, weight and functionality. What’s more, we can analyze the movement of an object or a person to imagine its trajectory, for example.

3. Organized eye movements

Visual gnosias involve sight, so eye movements are very important. Indeed, when we look around us, our gaze moves over the various elements to “soften” the information. When we look at something, our gaze must be organized to make sure we don’t miss anything, so we look up and down or left and right.

Eye movements are also important for reading, as our gaze must “move” from one word to the next along the line.

Visual gnosias are linked to visual perception and analysis.

If you want to improve your visual gnosias you can watch our program to improve perception with brain coach Clint.

SCARLETT

An easy and adapted version for seniors

LANGUAGE PROGRAM

For 4 weeks, follow our program to work on language by playing our specially selected games for 15 minutes a day.

Working on face recognition

• • Associating faces with names: Look at photos of people and try to remember their names and other details about them. This helps train face recognition and visual memory.

  • Face and emotion games: Practice games where you have to identify emotions on faces, associating facial expressions with specific emotions. This helps you improve your ability to read facial expressions and recognize faces in different contexts.

Using visual puzzles

• • Shape puzzles: Solve puzzles where you have to arrange pieces to form a complete picture. This helps reinforce the ability to assemble visual elements into a coherent picture.

  • Puzzles with blurred images: Use picture puzzles where objects are blurred or partially visible and try to put them back together. This improves the ability to perceive details in less sharp images.

Improve perception of visual details

• • • Compare similar images: Look at two almost identical images and find the differences between them. This improves your ability to discern subtle visual details.

    • Observing images from different angles: Take an object and observe it from different angles. This improves the ability to perceive details and shapes from different perspectives.