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 -