Introduction: It is well known that impairments in face recognition can arise following acquired brain injury (prosopagnosia). Recently it has become clear that prosopagnosia also exists in a developmental form: Developmental prosopagnosia (DP), estimated to affect about 2% of the population. People with DP have severe problems with recognizing the faces of others, including friends, family, and sometimes even themselves in a mirror.
Method: Following media coverage of prosopagnosia in Denmark, we were contacted by a number of people who describe major difficulties in recognizing other people. We have now tested 24 DPs and matched controls with a battery of diagnostic and experimental tests and questionnaires tapping a range of cognitive and perceptual abilities. We will present results from a range of the included tests and questionnaires, aiming to draw a cognitive profile of this group. To this aim we use both group and single case statistics.
Results: While reading and visual attention is generally intact in DP, performance in other domains is affected in some DPs but not others (e.g., topographical orientation). Object processing is impaired on a group level, and there seems to be a relationship with delayed processing of global shape information and deficits in face and object processing.
Conclusions: All DPs have severe difficulties in recognizing faces. Performance on other visual and cognitive tests are more varied. A core problem is related to the timing of visual processes, and key impairment may be in deriving global shape information from faces and objects alike.
Grant support: DFF - 4001-00115