Visual Object Processing in Normality and Pathology: Implications for Rehabilitation

In this Chapter we discuss some of the general implications for understanding visual object processing that emerge from recent cognitive neuroscientific studies of vision in both humans and non-human primates. This work stresses the modular organisation of visual processing and the role of learning upon particular visual processing modules. We go on to outline some of the implications of this work for attempts to remediate visual processing in brain damaged patients, and we evaluate previous rehabilitation studies within the light of the work on both the functional components and the physiological organisation of vision. We propose that any full theory of rehabilitation should be underpinned by a physiological account of the changes that occur after brain damage and during learning. Because of the inter-linking of cognitive and physiological research in vision, vision is one area of research where there are signs of such theory emerging.