Abstract

This work comprises of a literature review on visual perception distortions that have their origin in structural or functional irregularities of the brain, resulting in the cortex malfunction. The main area that we pay attention to is the brain cortex, but we should not forget, that diseases destructive to the lower brain structures also inevitably lead to secondary dysfunction of the cortex, and thus they have also been included in this paper. Cerebral vision disorders are a small percentage of caseload in either neurology or ophthalmology practice, yet they certainly are interesting for the cognitive scientists, as they open a window into the complex mechanisms of the cerebral clockwork. We are presenting examples of disorders, many of which engage the creative cooperation between specialists from different fields of neuroscience. Three kinds of disorders are presented: vision loss, agnosias and hallucinations. Among others there is some information on cortical blindness, blindsight, Anton's syndrome, hysterical blindness, apperceptive and associative agnosia, prosopagnosia, pure alexia, achromatopsia, Bonnet syndrome, Alice in Wonderland syndrome, peduncular halucinosis etc.