“I was up in my bedroom, getting off a spot of correspondence which I had neglected of late, and from where I sat looked down on the shady lawn with its gay flower beds. There was a bird or two hopping about, a butterfly or so fluttering to and fro and an assortment of bees buzzing hither and thither. In a garden chair sat old Mr Anstruther, getting his eight hours.”

PG Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

We seamlessly process objects, words, shapes, colours, movement and faces simultaneously within milliseconds with the mechanism rarely, if at all, flickering into our consciousness. Perhaps because of the apparent ease with which we are able to see, we live with the illusion that seeing is easy.

This review aims to consider the complex network comprising ‘higher visual function’ or ‘extrastriate vision’. It seeks to explore facial and object recognition, as well as reading and colour perception; problems traditionally regarded as disorders of the ‘ventral stream’ (see below).