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Behavior Research Methods Dec 2023Developmental prosopagnosia is characterized by severe, lifelong difficulties when recognizing facial identity. Unfortunately, the most common diagnostic assessment...
Developmental prosopagnosia is characterized by severe, lifelong difficulties when recognizing facial identity. Unfortunately, the most common diagnostic assessment (Cambridge Face Memory Test) misses 50-65% of individuals who believe that they have this condition. This results in such excluded cases' absence from scientific knowledge, effect sizes of impairment potentially overestimated, treatment efficacy underrated, and may elicit in them a negative experience of research. To estimate their symptomology and group-level impairments in face processing, we recruited a large cohort who believes that they have prosopagnosia. Matching prior reports, 56% did not meet criteria on the Cambridge Face Memory Test. However, the severity of their prosopagnosia symptoms and holistic perception deficits were comparable to those who did meet criteria. Excluded cases also exhibited face perception and memory impairments that were roughly one standard deviation below neurotypical norms, indicating the presence of objective problems. As the prosopagnosia index correctly classified virtually every case, we propose it should be the primary method for providing a diagnosis, prior to subtype categorization. We present researchers with a plan on how they can analyze these excluded prosopagnosia cases in their future work without negatively impacting their traditional findings. We anticipate such inclusion will enhance scientific knowledge, more accurately estimate effect sizes of impairments and treatments, and identify commonalities and distinctions between these different forms of prosopagnosia. Owing to their atypicalities in visual perception, we recommend that the prosopagnosia index should be used to screen out potential prosopagnosia cases from broader vision research.
Topics: Humans; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology; Visual Perception; Facial Recognition; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 36459376
DOI: 10.3758/s13428-022-02017-w -
Cognition Sep 2023Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DPs) experience severe and lifelong deficits recognising faces, but whether their deficits are selective to the processing...
Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DPs) experience severe and lifelong deficits recognising faces, but whether their deficits are selective to the processing of face identity or extend to the processing of face expression remains unclear. Clarifying this issue is important for understanding DP impairments and advancing theories of face processing. We compared identity and expression processing in a large sample of DPs (N = 124) using three different matching tasks that each assessed identity and expression processing with identical experimental formats. We ran each task in upright and inverted orientations and we measured inversion effects to assess the integrity of upright-specific face processes. We report three main results. First, DPs showed large deficits at discriminating identity but only subtle deficits at discriminating expression. Second, DPs showed a reduced inversion effect for identity but a normal inversion effect for expression. Third, DPs' performance on the expression tasks were linked to autism traits, but their performance on the identity tasks were not. These results constitute several dissociations between identity and expression processing in DP, and they are consistent with the view that the core impairment in DP is highly selective to identity.
Topics: Humans; Facial Recognition; Prosopagnosia; Facial Expression; Photic Stimulation; Orientation; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 37216847
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105469 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Mar 2024Face-selective regions in the human ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC) have been defined for decades mainly with functional magnetic resonance imaging. This... (Review)
Review
Face-selective regions in the human ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC) have been defined for decades mainly with functional magnetic resonance imaging. This face-selective VOTC network is traditionally divided in a posterior 'core' system thought to subtend face perception, and regions of the anterior temporal lobe as a semantic memory component of an extended general system. In between these two putative systems lies the anterior fusiform gyrus and surrounding sulci, affected by magnetic susceptibility artifacts. Here we suggest that this methodological gap overlaps with and contributes to a conceptual gap between (visual) perception and semantic memory for faces. Filling this gap with intracerebral recordings and direct electrical stimulation reveals robust face-selectivity in the anterior fusiform gyrus and a crucial role of this region, especially in the right hemisphere, in identity recognition for both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Based on these observations, we propose an integrated theoretical framework for human face (identity) recognition according to which face-selective regions in the anterior fusiform gyrus join the dots between posterior and anterior cortical face memories.
Topics: Humans; Prosopagnosia; Temporal Lobe; Facial Recognition; Recognition, Psychology; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Brain Mapping; Photic Stimulation
PubMed: 38191080
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105535 -
Genetics Jun 2024Face recognition is important for both visual and social cognition. While prosopagnosia or face blindness has been known for seven decades and face-specific neurons for...
Face recognition is important for both visual and social cognition. While prosopagnosia or face blindness has been known for seven decades and face-specific neurons for half a century, the molecular genetic mechanism is not clear. Here we report results after 17 years of research with classic genetics and modern genomics. From a large family with 18 congenital prosopagnosia (CP) members with obvious difficulties in face recognition in daily life, we uncovered a fully cosegregating private mutation in the MCTP2 gene which encodes a calcium binding transmembrane protein expressed in the brain. After screening through cohorts of 6589, we found more CPs and their families, allowing detection of more CP associated mutations in MCTP2. Face recognition differences were detected between 14 carriers with the frameshift mutation S80fs in MCTP2 and 19 noncarrying volunteers. Six families including one with 10 members showed the S80fs-CP correlation. Functional magnetic resonance imaging found association of impaired recognition of individual faces by MCTP2 mutant CPs with reduced repetition suppression to repeated facial identities in the right fusiform face area. Our results have revealed genetic predisposition of MCTP2 mutations in CP, 76 years after the initial report of prosopagnosia and 47 years after the report of the first CP. This is the first time a gene required for a higher form of visual social cognition was found in humans.
Topics: Humans; Prosopagnosia; Female; Male; Facial Recognition; Pedigree; Adult; Middle Aged; Mutation; Aged; Membrane Proteins; Magnetic Resonance Imaging
PubMed: 38547502
DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyae047 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Jul 2024The goal of this preregistered scoping review is to create an overview of the research on developmental prosopagnosia (DP). Through analysis of all empirical studies of... (Review)
Review
The goal of this preregistered scoping review is to create an overview of the research on developmental prosopagnosia (DP). Through analysis of all empirical studies of DP in adults, we investigate 1) how DP is conceptualized and defined, 2) how individuals are classified with DP and 3) which aspects of DP are investigated in the literature. We reviewed 224 peer-reviewed studies of DP. Our analysis of the literature reveals that while DP is predominantly defined as a lifelong face recognition impairment in the absence of acquired brain injury and intellectual/cognitive problems, there is far from consensus on the specifics of the definition with some studies emphasizing e.g., deficits in face perception, discrimination and/or matching as core characteristics of DP. These differences in DP definitions is further reflected in the vast heterogeneity in classification procedures. Only about half of the included studies explicitly state how they classify individuals with DP, and these studies adopt 40 different assessment tools. The two most frequently studied aspects of DP are the role of holistic processing and the specificity of face processing, and alongside a substantial body of neuroimaging studies of DP, this paints a picture of a research field whose scientific interests and aims are rooted in cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience. We argue that these roots - alongside the heterogeneity in DP definition and classification - may have limited the scope and interest of DP research unnecessarily, and we point to new avenues of research for the field.
Topics: Prosopagnosia; Humans; Facial Recognition; Recognition, Psychology
PubMed: 38795651
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.011 -
PeerJ 2023Developmental prosopagnosia is a relatively common visuo-cognitive condition, characterised by impaired facial identity recognition. Impairment severity appears to...
Developmental prosopagnosia is a relatively common visuo-cognitive condition, characterised by impaired facial identity recognition. Impairment severity appears to reside on a continuum, however, it is unknown whether instances of milder deficits reflect the successful use of spontaneous (typical) face recognition strategies, or the application of extraneous compensatory cues to recognition. Here, we explore this issue in two studies. First, 23 adults with developmental prosopagnosia were asked about their use of spontaneous versus compensatory face recognition techniques in everyday life, using a series of closed- and open-ended questions. Second, the same participants performed a computerised famous face recognition task where they were asked to provide reasons why they could make any successful identifications. Findings from both studies suggest that people with developmental prosopagnosia can successfully, and quite frequently, use compensatory strategies to recognition, and that these cues support the majority of instances of preserved familiar face recognition. In contrast, 16 of the 23 participants were able to spontaneously recognise familiar faces on at least some occasions, but there were vast individual differences in frequencies of success. These findings have important implications for our conceptualisation of the condition, as well as for diagnostic practice.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Cues; Facial Recognition; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology; Male; Female; Middle Aged
PubMed: 37483961
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15497 -
Cognition Aug 2023An on-going debate in psychology and neuroscience concerns the way faces and objects are represented. Domain-specific theories suggest that faces are processed via a...
An on-going debate in psychology and neuroscience concerns the way faces and objects are represented. Domain-specific theories suggest that faces are processed via a specialised mechanism, separate from objects. Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a neurodevelopmental disorder in which there is a deficit in the ability to recognize conspecific (human) faces. It is unclear, however, whether prosopagnosia also affects recognition of heterospecific (animal) faces. To address this question, we compared recognition performance with human and animal faces in neurotypical controls and participants with DP. We found that DPs showed deficits in the recognition of both human and animal faces compared to neurotypical controls. In contrast to, we found no group-level deficit in the recognition of animate or inanimate non-face objects in DPs. Using an individual-level approach, we demonstrate that in 60% of cases in which face recognition is impaired, there is a concurrent deficit with animal faces. Together, these results show that DPs have a general deficit in the recognition of faces that encompass a range of configural and morphological structures.
Topics: Humans; Animals; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Facial Recognition
PubMed: 37156079
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105477 -
Scientific Reports Mar 2024Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is characterised by deficits in face identification. However, there is debate about whether these deficits are primarily perceptual, and...
Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is characterised by deficits in face identification. However, there is debate about whether these deficits are primarily perceptual, and whether they extend to other face processing tasks (e.g., identifying emotion, age, and gender; detecting faces in scenes). In this study, 30 participants with DP and 75 controls completed a battery of eight tasks assessing four domains of face perception (identity; emotion; age and gender; face detection). The DP group performed worse than the control group on both identity perception tasks, and one task from each other domain. Both identity perception tests uniquely predicted DP/control group membership, and performance on two measures of face memory. These findings suggest that deficits in DP may arise from issues with face perception. Some non-identity tasks also predicted DP/control group membership and face memory, even when face identity perception was accounted for. Gender perception and speed of face detection consistently predicted unique variance in group membership and face memory; several other tasks were only associated with some measures of face recognition ability. These findings indicate that face perception deficits in DP may extend beyond identity perception. However, the associations between tasks may also reflect subtle aspects of task demands or stimuli.
Topics: Humans; Facial Recognition; Prosopagnosia; Emotions; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 38503841
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-57176-x -
Perception Sep 2023Aphantasia and prosopagnosia are both rare conditions with impairments in visual cognition. While prosopagnosia refers to a face recognition deficit, aphantasics exhibit...
Aphantasia and prosopagnosia are both rare conditions with impairments in visual cognition. While prosopagnosia refers to a face recognition deficit, aphantasics exhibit a lack of mental imagery. Current object recognition theories propose an interplay of perception and mental representations, making an association between recognition performance and visual imagery plausible. While the literature assumes a link between aphantasia and prosopagnosia, other impairments in aphantasia have been shown to be rather global. Therefore, we assumed that aphantasics do not solely exhibit impairments in face recognition but rather in general visual recognition performance, probably moderated by stimulus complexity. To test this hypothesis, 65 aphantasics were compared to 55 controls in a face recognition task, the Cambridge Face Memory Test, and a corresponding object recognition task, the Cambridge Car Memory Test. In both tasks, aphantasics performed worse than controls, indicating mild recognition deficits without face-specificity. Additional correlations between imagery vividness and performance in both tasks were found, suggesting that visual imagery influences visual recognition not only in imagery extremes. Stimulus complexity produced the expected moderation effect but only for the whole imagery-spectrum and only with face stimuli. Overall, the results imply that aphantasia is linked to a general but mild deficit in visual recognition.
Topics: Humans; Prosopagnosia; Prevalence; Recognition, Psychology; Cognition; Visual Perception; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 37321679
DOI: 10.1177/03010066231180712 -
Acta Psychologica May 2024Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a condition that indicates the inability to recognize individuals by their faces from birth, without any history of brain damage. The...
Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a condition that indicates the inability to recognize individuals by their faces from birth, without any history of brain damage. The assessment of face recognition ability and diagnosis of DP involve the use of face tests such as the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and the Cambridge Face Perception Test, along with self-reported measures like the 20-Item Prosopagnosia Index (PI20). Face recognition accuracy is affected by anxiety. However, previous studies on the relationship between face recognition ability and anxiety have not used the PI20 measure. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-reported measures of face recognition ability and anxiety tendencies among healthy young individuals for DP diagnosis and its implications. We used a face recognition test, involving the PI20, CFMT, Visual Perception Test for Agnosia-Famous Face Test (VPTA-FFT), and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). We assessed the performance of 116 Japanese young adults (75 females, median age of 20.7 years, with a standard deviation of 1.2). Subsequently, we conducted a statistical analysis to examine the relationship between the outcomes of the face recognition tests and STAI scores using Pearson correlation analysis and single correlation coefficients. The results showed a positive correlation between state anxiety and PI20 (r = 0.308, p = 0.007), and a weak positive correlation was also observed between trait anxiety and PI20 (r = 0.268, p = 0.04). In contrast, there was no correlation between CFMT and VPTA-FFT with respect to STAI. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis also suggested that the correlation between the performance on the PI20 (self-report) and objective measures of face recognition performance (the CFMT and the VPTA-FFT) are driven by differences in anxiety. This study is the first to explore the relationship between face recognition abilities and anxiety using the PI20 self-report measure. There are implications for future research on the diagnosis of DP and the relationship between anxiety and face recognition.
Topics: Female; Young Adult; Humans; Adult; Facial Recognition; Prosopagnosia; Recognition, Psychology; Anxiety; Self Report; Pattern Recognition, Visual
PubMed: 38537601
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104237