TY - JOUR
T1 - Perceptual and Memorial Contributions to Developmental Prosopagnosia
AU - Ulrich, Philip I. N.
AU - Wilkinson, David
AU - Ferguson, Heather
AU - Smith, Laura
AU - Bindemann, Markus
AU - Johnston, Robert
AU - Schmalzl, Laura
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is commonly associated with the failure toproperly perceive individuating facial properties, notably those conveyingconfigural or holistic content. While this may indicate that the primary impairmentis perceptual, it is conceivable that some cases of DP are instead caused by amemory impairment, with any perceptual complaint merely allied rather thancausal. To investigate this possibility, we administered a battery of face perceptiontasks to 11 individuals who reported that their face recognition difficulties disruptdaily activity and who also performed poorly on two formal tests of facerecognition. Group statistics identified, relative to age- and gender-matchedcontrols, difficulties in apprehending global–local relations and the holisticproperties of faces, and in matching across viewpoints, but these were mild innature and were not consistently evident at the level of individual participants. Sixof the 11 individuals failed to show any evidence of perceptual impairment. In theremainingfive individuals, no single perceptual deficit, or combination of deficits,was necessary or sufficient for poor recognition performance. These data suggestthat some cases of DP are better explained by a memorial rather than perceptualdeficit, and highlight the relevance of the apperceptive/associative distinction morecommonly applied to the allied syndrome of acquired prosopagnosia.
AB - Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is commonly associated with the failure toproperly perceive individuating facial properties, notably those conveyingconfigural or holistic content. While this may indicate that the primary impairmentis perceptual, it is conceivable that some cases of DP are instead caused by amemory impairment, with any perceptual complaint merely allied rather thancausal. To investigate this possibility, we administered a battery of face perceptiontasks to 11 individuals who reported that their face recognition difficulties disruptdaily activity and who also performed poorly on two formal tests of facerecognition. Group statistics identified, relative to age- and gender-matchedcontrols, difficulties in apprehending global–local relations and the holisticproperties of faces, and in matching across viewpoints, but these were mild innature and were not consistently evident at the level of individual participants. Sixof the 11 individuals failed to show any evidence of perceptual impairment. In theremainingfive individuals, no single perceptual deficit, or combination of deficits,was necessary or sufficient for poor recognition performance. These data suggestthat some cases of DP are better explained by a memorial rather than perceptualdeficit, and highlight the relevance of the apperceptive/associative distinction morecommonly applied to the allied syndrome of acquired prosopagnosia.
U2 - 10.1080/17470218.2016.1177101
DO - 10.1080/17470218.2016.1177101
M3 - Article
SN - 1747-0218
VL - 70
SP - 298
EP - 315
JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
IS - 2
ER -