Agnosic behavior in anomia: a case of pathological verbal dominance.

The interrelation of perceptual and verbral process was explored in a fluent aphasic with a naming disorder. This patient performed extremely well on complex perceptual tasks as long as he was instructed to remain silent or to count aloud. Whe he began to talk about what he was doing, he misnamed many test items and behaved as if they were what he had called them. The verbal interference effect is explained in terms of cerebral dominance and interhemispheric interaction and it is suggested that a similar mechanism may apply in classical cases of agnosia.