Patterns of perceptual performance in developmental prosopagnosia: An in-depth case series

Abstract

ABSTRACT 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.