Measuring palinopsia: Characteristics of a persevering visual sensation from cerebral pathology

Palinopsia is an abnormal perseverative visual phenomenon, whose relation to normal afterimages is unknown. We measured palinoptic positive visual afterimages in a patient with a cerebral lesion. Positive afterimages were confined to the left inferior quadrant, which allowed a comparison between afterimages in the intact and the affected part of his visual field. Results showed that negative afterimages in the affected quadrant were no different from those in the unaffected quadrant. The positive afterimage in his affected field, however, differed both qualitatively and quantitatively from normal afterimages, being weaker but much more persistent, and displaced from the location of the inducing stimulus. These findings reveal distinctions between pathological afterimages of cerebral origin and physiological afterimages of retinal origin.