What does agnosia refer to in psychology?

Agnosia refers specifically to a condition characterized by an impairment in perceptual recognition of objects. Individuals with agnosia may have intact sensory modalities but struggle to recognize or interpret stimuli in their environment. This could manifest as difficulty identifying familiar objects, faces, or even sounds despite the capability of seeing or hearing them.

This condition is often linked to brain damage, particularly in areas responsible for processing sensory information, such as the occipital lobe for visual agnosia or the temporal lobe for auditory agnosia. Therefore, recognizing that agnosia centers on perceptual recognition, rather than other cognitive functions like memory or motor movements, clarifies why this choice is the correct descriptor of the term in psychology.