Training of familiar face recognition and visual scan paths for faces in a child with congenital prosopagnosia

Abstract

In the current report we describe a successful training study aimed at improving recognition of a set of familiar face photographs in K., a 4-year-old girl with congenital prosopagnosia (CP). A detailed assessment of K.'s face-processing skills showed a deficit in structural encoding, most pronounced in the processing of facial features within the face. In addition, eye movement recordings revealed that K.'s scan paths for faces were characterized by a large percentage of fixations directed to areas outside the internal core features (i.e., eyes, nose, and mouth), in particular by poor attendance to the eye region. Following multiple baseline assessments, training focused on teaching K. to reliably recognize a set of familiar face photographs by directing visual attention to specific characteristics of the internal features of each face. The training significantly improved K.'s ability to recognize the target faces, with her performance being flawless immediately after training as well as at a follow-up assessment 1 month later. In addition, eye movement recordings following training showed a significant change in K.'s scan paths, with a significant increase in the percentage of fixations directed to the internal features, particularly the eye region. Encouragingly, not only was the change in scan paths observed for the set of familiar trained faces, but it generalized to a set of faces that was not presented during training. In addition to documenting significant training effects, our study raises the intriguing question of whether abnormal scan paths for faces may be a common factor underlying face recognition impairments in childhood CP, an issue that has not been explored so far.

Specificity of impaired facial identity recognition in children with suspected developmental prosopagnosia

“…(age 7, Brundson, Coltheart, Nickels, & Joy, 2006;previously reported in Joy & Brundson, 2002) exhibited echolalia (rote repetition of phrases out of context)-again a common feature of speech development in ASD (Tager-Flusberg & Calkins, 1990). Concerns regarding ASD were also raised in the case of K. (age 4, Schmalzl et al, 2008b), although she did not score in the autistic range on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (Schopler, Reichler, DeVellis, & Daly, 1980). The exception here appears to be L.G.…”

“…For example, she failed to recognize her father when he was wearing the same football strip as his team-mates. A comprehensive study of K 's face recognition difficulties was conducted by Schmalzl et al (2008b), when she was 4 years old. K also has difficulties with social interaction and was suspected of having Asperger syndrome, although diagnostic screening using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale at age 3 concluded that she did not meet criteria for ASD.…”

“…Thus, in order to establish and confirm the existence of childhood DP, it is necessary to rule out the possibility that children are in fact on the autistic spectrum. However, with the exception of Schmalzl et al (2008b), none of the aforementioned case studies conducted formal screening for ASD. As such, we currently know very little about the childhood manifestation of DP.…”

Face ethnicity and measurement reliability affect face recognition performance in developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence from the Cambridge Face Memory Test–Australian

“…For example, there has been recent interest in whether face training can improve face recognition ability in prosopagnosia Schmalzl, Palermo, Green, Brunsdon, & Coltheart, 2008) and autism spectrum disorder (Tanaka et al, 2010). Training studies can benefit from the availability of two closely matched tests of face recognition ability, one to assess ability pre training and one to assess ability post training.…”

Phasic alertness enhances processing of face and non-face stimuli in congenital prosopagnosia

“…However, so far there were only a few attempts to examine whether enhancing holistic processing in prosopagnosic individuals would improve their face processing. For example, K, a 4-years-old child with CP was trained to direct her attention to internal face features thus enhancing their holistic processing (e.g., eyes and nose) and this resulted in improved recognition abilities immediately following training and a month later (Schmalzl, Palermo, Green, Brunsdon, & Coltheart, 2008b). Moreover, following training on discrimination of unfamiliar faces based on spatial configuration, MZ, a 48-years old women with CP, improved her performance on face identification and this was accompanied by a modification of her ERP and fMRI face related signals in terms of selectivity and increased functional connectivity (DeGutis, .…”