Color-Naming Defects in Association With Alexia

DISTURBANCES of color identification in association with the syndrome of pure alexia without agraphia have been repeatedly recognized in the past. Lange1reviewed these extensively. More recently Critchley2has reviewed the literature on such disturbances of color identification. He expressed skepticism as to the existence of the syndrome of aphasia for color names and advanced the view that such cases probably represented the combination of a perceptual deficit with a minimal aphasia. We have recently had the opportunity to clarify the problem of color-name aphasia by repeated study of a patient with the syndrome of pure alexia without agraphia over several months. On the basis of these studies, we believe that the evidence is now clear that a disturbance of color-naming, or more correctly, of matching the spoken name of the color to the seen color, can be shown to exist in the demonstrated absence of any