<unk>  is a form of agnosia that manifests itself primarily in the inability to recognize or differentiate between sounds. It is not a defect of the ear or "hearing", but rather a neurological inability of the brain to process sound meaning. While<unk>  impairs the understanding of sounds, other abilities such as reading, writing, and speaking are not hindered. It is caused by bilateral damage to the anterior superior temporal gyrus, which is part of the<unk>  pathway responsible for sound recognition, the<unk>  "what" pathway. Persons with<unk>  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. All<unk>  patients read lips in order to enhance the speech comprehension. It is yet unclear whether<unk>  (also called general<unk>  is a combination of milder disorders, such<unk>  verbal agnosia (pure word deafness), non-verbal<unk> , amusia and word-meaning deafness, or a mild case of the more severe disorder, cerebral deafness. Typically, a person with<unk>  would be incapable of comprehending spoken language as well as environmental sounds. Some may say that the milder disorders are how<unk>  occurs. There are few cases where a person may not be able to understand spoken language. This is called verbal<unk>  or pure word deafness. Nonverbal<unk>  is diagnosed when a person’s understanding of environmental sounds is inhibited. Combined, these two disorders portray<unk> . The blurriness between the combination of these disorders may lead to discrepancies in reporting. , 203 patients with<unk>  perceptual deficits due to CNS damage were reported in the medical literature, of which 183 diagnosed with general<unk>  or word deafness, 34 with cerebral deafness, 51 with non-verbal<unk> -amusia and 8 word meaning deafness (for a list of patients see).
Auditory agnosia
Visual agnosia
Apperceptive agnosia
Cerebral polyopia
Auditory verbal agnosia
Phonagnosia
Cynanthropy
Binocular dysphoria