Abstract

Despite a mass of research on the cognitive basis for tool use, the term Ideational Apraxia is still controversial, and it is used to refer to a number of different types of deficits and describe very different behaviours. We report the case of a right-handed woman (FL) who exhibited selective tool use disturbance in the context of a cognitive profile otherwise preserved. FL shows a striking dissociation between her failure to manipulate objects and her perfect knowledge about their functions and properties. Such dissociation would indicate the existence of two separate systems, one involved in object identification and one in object manipulation: normally, the two systems operate together, however they can be selectively compromised by cerebral lesions. In FL, the automatic selection of action schemas necessary for correct object use appears to be lost, while her ability to identify and recognize their mechanical and functional properties is spared.