Neuropsychological Approaches to Perceptual Organization

This chapter takes a neuropsychological perspective on questions concerning analytic and holistic processing. It examines the behavior of seven brain-damaged patients who have problems with perceptual organization. These “integrative agnostic” patients seem to be disproportionately impaired on tasks tapping holistic configural processes compared to part-based processes. The first section of this chapter outlines three main empirical issues falling under the domain of perceptual organization: figure-ground organization, visual interpolation, and grouping. The second section contains a description of the patients. The third section examines the nature of the impairment in perceptual organization, in relation to figure-ground organization, visual interpolation, and grouping.