Object recognition can break down in a variety of ways after brain damage. The resulting different forms of agnosia provide us with useful constraints on theories of normal object recognition. Recent studies suggest a division of labor for the recognition of different types of stimuli (common objects, words, faces, direction of eye gaze, spatial relations among parts of the human body), a high degree of interactivity in the processes underlying object recognition, and the possibility that recognition and awareness of recognition may be neurally distinct.