Auditory agnosia
Encyclopedia
Auditory agnosia is a form of agnosia
that manifests primarily in the inability to recognize or differentiate between sounds. It is not a defect of the ear, but a neurological inability of the brain to process what the sound means. Persons with auditory agnosia can physically hear the sounds and describe them using unrelated terms, but are unable to recognize them. They might describe the sound of some environmental sounds, such as a motor starting, as resembling a lion roaring, but would not be able to associate the sound with "car" or "engine", nor would they say that it was a lion creating the noise.
Linguistic (or verbal information or Wernicke's) agnosia indicates that the subject can't comprehend words, although they can understand words using sign language
and words from reading books, and are themselves capable of speech (and even of deriving meaning from non-linguistic communication e.g. body language) the particular sounds associated to each word are meaningless.
Classical (or pure) auditory agnosia is an inability to process environmental sounds, such as animal noises, industrial noises, or the like. An airplane roaring overhead would not be understood to be related to the idea of "airplane"—indeed, the person would not even think to look up.
Interpretive or receptive agnosia (amusia) is an inability to understand music
. The term "amusia" covers a broad spectrum: from those with a mere deficit of rhythmic ability (mild dysrhythmia), to those with heavy all-encompassing amusia, including the recently coined "distimbria"; sufferers regard music as simply "noise", often compared to drainpipes or drills, or other invasive forms of background noise. Vocal singing can be understood, but is simply seen as "odd tone of voice". The standard is considered to be that amusics with a "normal" intensity of amusia are cortically unable to distinguish pitch changes of less than three semitones (when it includes a pitch-deficit; it is contentious whether without this symptom it can be considered amusia). They may appreciate or enjoy listening to or performing music, but some can not tolerate it or find it irritating.These are somewhat ambiguous definitions, and are changing all the time as they are updated to fit the current neuropsychological model of the physiological behaviours and manifestations of these deficits, and cannot therefore be considered a concrete meaning.
Agnosia
Agnosia is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss...
that manifests primarily in the inability to recognize or differentiate between sounds. It is not a defect of the ear, but a neurological inability of the brain to process what the sound means. Persons with auditory agnosia can physically hear the sounds and describe them using unrelated terms, but are unable to recognize them. They might describe the sound of some environmental sounds, such as a motor starting, as resembling a lion roaring, but would not be able to associate the sound with "car" or "engine", nor would they say that it was a lion creating the noise.
Types of auditory agnosia
There are three primary distinctions of auditory agnosia.Linguistic (or verbal information or Wernicke's) agnosia indicates that the subject can't comprehend words, although they can understand words using sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
and words from reading books, and are themselves capable of speech (and even of deriving meaning from non-linguistic communication e.g. body language) the particular sounds associated to each word are meaningless.
Classical (or pure) auditory agnosia is an inability to process environmental sounds, such as animal noises, industrial noises, or the like. An airplane roaring overhead would not be understood to be related to the idea of "airplane"—indeed, the person would not even think to look up.
Interpretive or receptive agnosia (amusia) is an inability to understand music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. The term "amusia" covers a broad spectrum: from those with a mere deficit of rhythmic ability (mild dysrhythmia), to those with heavy all-encompassing amusia, including the recently coined "distimbria"; sufferers regard music as simply "noise", often compared to drainpipes or drills, or other invasive forms of background noise. Vocal singing can be understood, but is simply seen as "odd tone of voice". The standard is considered to be that amusics with a "normal" intensity of amusia are cortically unable to distinguish pitch changes of less than three semitones (when it includes a pitch-deficit; it is contentious whether without this symptom it can be considered amusia). They may appreciate or enjoy listening to or performing music, but some can not tolerate it or find it irritating.These are somewhat ambiguous definitions, and are changing all the time as they are updated to fit the current neuropsychological model of the physiological behaviours and manifestations of these deficits, and cannot therefore be considered a concrete meaning.