{"id":41522,"date":"2021-07-13T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T18:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=41522"},"modified":"2021-07-14T15:36:22","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:36:22","slug":"the-man-who-mistook-his-wife-for-a-hat-dr-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-man-who-mistook-his-wife-for-a-hat-dr-p\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Dr. P’s Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who was Dr. P from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat<\/a><\/em>? What did Dr. P’s case teach author Oliver Sacks about left-hemisphere damage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the book of psychological case studies, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,<\/em> Dr. P was a patient who suffered from left-hemisphere damage and had trouble identifying what he was seeing. In fact, the book is named after Dr. P because he did, literally, mistake his wife’s head for a floating hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue on for more information about the case study of Dr. P. in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Agnosia of Dr. P<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Neurologists often speak of brain disorders in terms of deficits. A deficit is some impairment of neurological function, usually linked to brain damage to some particular area. Damage to Broca\u2019s area, for example, is known to cause aphasia\u2014the inability to process and understand written or spoken language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can see a clear example of a neurological deficit in the strange case of Dr. P from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat<\/em>, a distinguished professor of music. Author Oliver Sacks met with Dr. P after the man\u2019s wife reported that her husband was having strange problems with visual recognition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This manifested in bizarre ways. Dr. P seemed to be unable to recognize the faces of his students and only knew them when they spoke or played their instruments. He also had the opposite problem\u2014seeing faces where there were none. To the bafflement of observers, Dr. P was known to pat inanimate objects like parking meters and fire hydrants, thinking they were children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Dr. P went to an ophthalmologist, he discovered that his eyes <\/em>were not the problem. Dr. P suffered instead from agnosia\u2014an inability to recognize and interpret visual data<\/strong>. He could observe <\/em>the visual world around him but derive no holistic meaning <\/em>from it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Left-Hemisphere Problems<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sacks\u2019 initial examination revealed that Dr. P was having problems with the left side of his brain. Sacks identified a few symptoms of Dr. P\u2019s condition immediately:<\/p>\n\n\n\n