Prosopagnosia and disorders of face processing

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Face recognition is a form of expert visual processing. Acquired prosopagnosia is the loss of familiarity for facial identity and has several functional variants, namely apperceptive, amnestic, and associative forms. Acquired forms are usually caused by either occipitotemporal or anterior temporal lesions, right or bilateral in most cases. In addition, there is a developmental form, whose functional and structural origins are still being elucidated. Despite their difficulties with recognizing faces, some of these subjects still show signs of covert recognition, which may have a number of explanations. Other aspects of face perception can be spared in prosopagnosic subjects. Patients with other types of face processing difficulties have been described, including impaired expression processing, impaired lip-reading, false familiarity for faces, and a people-specific amnesia. Recent rehabilitative studies have shown some modest ability to improve face perception in prosopagnosic subjects through perceptual training protocols.

Department(s)

Psychology

Publication Title

Handbook of Clinical Neurology

Volume

178

First Page

175

Last Page

193

Publication Date

1-1-2021

DOI

10.1016/B978-0-12-821377-3.00006-4

ISSN

00729752

E-ISSN

22124152

PubMed ID

33832676

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