Psychology Atlas

How The Mind Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Psychological Phenomena

Balint's Syndrome

Perception and Psychophysics Effects

Balint's syndrome is a rare neuropsychological disorder made up of three co-occurring visual impairments: simultanagnosia, the inability to perceive more than one object in the visual field at a time; oculomotor apraxia, difficulty voluntarily directing the eyes to fixate on a target; and optic ataxia, difficulty using vision to guide the hand toward an object. First identified in 1909 by the Austro-Hungarian neurologist Rezso Balint, it usually results from damage to both parieto-occipital regions of the brain, most often following an acute stroke, though it can also arise from degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease or from traumatic brain injury; because clinicians unfamiliar with the syndrome can mistake it for blindness, psychosis or dementia, it is frequently misdiagnosed. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
First Described Year
1909 2
It was named in 1909 for the Austro-Hungarian neurologist and psychiatrist Rezső Bálint who first identified it. (w-bbfill-psychology6-0926)
Classification
Type of Phenomenon
Perceptual Phenomenon 1
Diagnostic Chapter
Neurocognitive Disorders 1
Sources
1. Balint's Syndrome (Wikipedia)
  • Lead section
    Bálint's syndrome is an uncommon and incompletely understood triad of severe neuropsychological impairments: inability to perceive the visual field as a whole (simultanagnosia), difficulty in fixating the eyes (oculomotor apraxia), and inability to move the hand to a specific object by using vision (optic ataxia).
  • lead section, diagnostic-chapter classification
    Balint's syndrome is an uncommon and incompletely understood triad of severe neuropsychological impairments: inability to perceive the visual field as a whole (simultanagnosia), difficulty in fixating the eyes (oculomotor apraxia), and inability to move the hand to a specific object by using vision (optic ataxia).
View the Source
2. Wikipedia: Bálint's syndrome
Wikipedia article text
Quote, Wikipedia article text
It was named in 1909 for the Austro-Hungarian neurologist and psychiatrist Rezső Bálint who first identified it.
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.