Developmental Prosopagnosia: Should it be Taken at Face Value?

Abstract

This study presents a rare case of developmental prosopagnosia. Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed no overt brain abnormalities. EP's basic visual skills and visual memory were intact, as was his ability to judge age, sex and expression from faces, identify facial parts, and make face/non-face decisions. EP was impaired at recognizing famous and very familiar faces and describing visual images of famous faces. He also displayed an anterograde memory impairment for recently studied faces, and performed poorly on tests of unfamiliar face matching, most notably for chimeric faces. It is suggested that EP may be deficient at encoding configural representations of faces. EP appears to have a "pure" (i.e. specific to faces) prosopagnosia, as he shows normal object recognition from unusual viewpoints, good gestalt completion for objects, but not for faces, normal visual imagery for objects but not for faces, a disruption of the inversion effect for faces but not for houses, and performs within the normal range on tests of within-category discriminations, even with unique exemplars of object categories such as famous buildings.

The fusiform face area is not sufficient for face recognition: Evidence from a patient with dense prosopagnosia and no occipital face area

“…On version 2, D.F. also had a higher tendency to respond "yes" than "no" (Duchaine, 2000, Newcombe, 1979, Nunn et al, 2001. Results are shown in the Figure 10.…”

“…Duchaine & Nakayama, in press;McNeil & Warrington, 1993;Nunn, Postma & Pearson, 2001;Whiteley & Warrington, 1977).…”

Dissociations of Face and Object Recognition in Developmental Prosopagnosia

“…This mixed outcome is true for recognition of facial expressions of emotion, age discrimination, and sex discrimination. Similarly, nonface object and place recognition has been shown to be impaired in some DPs, whereas others appear to show normal recognition of at least some nonface classes (Duchaine, Nieminen-von Wendt, et al, 2003;Nunn et al, 2001;Bentin et al, 1999). The heterogeneity that has been found for these different abilities is similar to that found with individuals with acquired prosopagnosia (Galaburda & Duchaine, 2003).…”

“…Many compensate by relying on information other than facial structure, and the most commonly reported alternative routes to identification include hair, clothing, voice, and gait (Barton et al, 2003;Duchaine, Nieminenvon Wendt, et al, 2003;Nunn et al, 2001;Duchaine, 2000). When these means fail, DPs often use conversational topics to determine identity.…”

Hereditary prosopagnosia (HPA): the first report outside the Caucasian population

“…Almost all reports are of single cases or collections of unrelated patients who acquired PA after brain injuries, strokes or atrophy, including the right occipito-temporal cortex. There are only a few reports of congenital, developmental or childhood PA (Ariel and Sadeh 1996;Behrmann and Avidan 2005;Bentin et al 1999;De Gelder and Rouw 2000;Duchaine 2000;Duchaine et al 2003;De Haan 1999;De Haan and Campbell 1991;Hasson et al 2003;Jones and Tranel 2001;Kress and Daum 2003;McConachie 1976;Nunn et al 2001;Temple 1992). The terms congenital, developmental, childhood and acquired are sometimes loosely used without taking into account the (putative) etiology.…”