- paliopsia
- A term coined in or shortly before 1949 by the British neurologist Macdonald Critchley (19001997) to denote the phenomenon known today as * palinopsia (i.e. a visual image that persists or recurs paroxysmally after the original object or stimulus has moved out of sight). In his original paper on the subject, Critchley gives the example of a woman with a left parieto-occipital tumour who reperceived previously perceived objects within the blind half of her visual field. As he recounts, "A well-remembered object, or something which had previously attracted her attention strongly - even as long as several hours previously - would keep appearing in the blind half of her vision and would gradually float towards the mid-line, 'like characters on a stage'. One object in particular, a little Dresden china dog, was very apt to appear." As Critchley continues, "Here we have the hallucinatory and continued reappearance of an object previously seen or visualized with some intensity. For this phenomenon the term 'paliopsia' may appropriately be applied."ReferencesCritchley, M. (1949). Metamorphopsia of central origin. Transactions ofthe Ophthalmologic Society of the UK, 69, 111-121.Critchley, M. (1951). Types of visual persevera-tion: 'Paliopsia' and 'illusory visual spread'. Brain, 74, 267-299.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.
