area (FFA). An area in the fusiform gyrus of the temporal lobe that has been strongly associated with a role in facial recognition. However, this area is not exclusive to faces; recognition of other objects of expertise are also processed in this area. The extrastriate body cortex (EBA) was found to be activated by photographs, silhouettes, or stick drawings of human bodies. The parahippocampal place area (PPA) of the limbic cortex has been found to be activated by the sight of scenes and backgrounds. Cerebral achromatopsia (the inability to discriminate between different hues) is caused by damage to the V8 area of the visual association cortex. The left hemisphere seems to play a critical role in recognizing the meaning of common objects. Diagnosis Classification Broadly, visual agnosia is divided into apperceptive and associative visual agnosia. Apperceptive agnosia is failure of object recognition even when the basic visual functions (acuity, color, motion) and other mental processing, such as language and intelligence, are normal. Tasks requiring copying, matching, or drawing simple figures can distinguish the individuals with apperceptive agnosia because they cannot perform such tasks. Associative agnosia is an inability to identify objects even with apparent perception and knowledge of them. It involves a higher level of processing than apperceptive agnosia. Individuals with associative agnosia can copy or match simple figures, indicating that they can perceive objects correctly. They also display the knowledge of objects when tested with tactile or verbal information. However, when tested visually, they cannot name or describe common objects. This means that there is an impairment in associating the perception of objects with the stored knowledge of them. Although visual agnosia can be general, there exist many variants that impair recognition of specific types. These variants of visual agnosia include prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces), pure word blindness (inability to recognize words, often called "agnosic alexia" or "pure alexia"), agnosias for colors (inability to differentiate colors), agnosias for the environment (inability to recognize landmarks or difficulty with spatial layout of an environment, i.e. topographagnosia) and simultanagnosia (inability to sort out multiple objects in a visual scene). Categories and subtypes of visual agnosia The two main categories of visual agnosia are: Apperceptive visual agnosia, impaired object recognition. Individuals with apperceptive visual agnosia cannot form a whole percept of visual information. Associative visual agnosia, impaired object identification. Individuals with associative agnosia cannot give a meaning to a formed percept. The