TY - JOUR

T1 - Patterns of perceptual performance in developmental prosopagnosia

T2 - An in-depth case series

AU - Gerlach, Christian

AU - Starrfelt, Randi

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a syndrome characterized by lifelong impairment in face recognition in the absence of brain damage. A key question regarding DP concerns which process(es) might be affected to selectively/disproportionally impair face recognition. We present evidence from a group of DPs, combining an overview of previous results with additional analyses important for understanding their pattern of preserved and impaired perceptual abilities. We argue that for most of these individuals, the common denominator is a deficit in (rapid) processing of global shape information. We conclude that the deficit in this group of DPs is not face-selective, but that it may appear so because faces are more visually similar—and recognized at a more fine-grained level—than objects. Indeed, when the demand on perceptual differentiation and visual similarity are held constant for faces and objects, we find no evidence for a disproportionate deficit for faces in this group of DPs.

AB - Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a syndrome characterized by lifelong impairment in face recognition in the absence of brain damage. A key question regarding DP concerns which process(es) might be affected to selectively/disproportionally impair face recognition. We present evidence from a group of DPs, combining an overview of previous results with additional analyses important for understanding their pattern of preserved and impaired perceptual abilities. We argue that for most of these individuals, the common denominator is a deficit in (rapid) processing of global shape information. We conclude that the deficit in this group of DPs is not face-selective, but that it may appear so because faces are more visually similar—and recognized at a more fine-grained level—than objects. Indeed, when the demand on perceptual differentiation and visual similarity are held constant for faces and objects, we find no evidence for a disproportionate deficit for faces in this group of DPs.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - developmental prosopagnosia

KW - face recognition

KW - global shape processing

KW - object recognition

KW - visual similarity

U2 - 10.1080/02643294.2020.1869709

DO - 10.1080/02643294.2020.1869709

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33459172

VL - 38

SP - 27

EP - 49

JO - Cognitive Neuropsychology

JF - Cognitive Neuropsychology

SN - 0264-3294

IS - 1

ER -