Are faces special? A case of pure prosopagnosia

Abstract

The ability to recognize individual faces is of crucial social importance for humans and evolutionarily necessary for survival. Consequently, faces may be “special” stimuli, for which we have developed unique modular perceptual and recognition processes. Some of the strongest evidence for face processing being modular comes from cases of prosopagnosia, where patients are unable to recognize faces whilst retaining the ability to recognize other objects. Here we present the case of an acquired prosopagnosic whose poor recognition was linked to a perceptual impairment in face processing. Despite this, she had intact object recognition, even at a subordinate level. She also showed a normal ability to learn and to generalize learning of nonfacial exemplars differing in the nature and arrangement of their parts, along with impaired learning and generalization of facial exemplars. The case provides evidence for modular perceptual processes for faces.

Keywords:

• Prosopagnosia
• Modular processing
• Category specificity
• Configural processing

This work was supported by grants from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Stroke Association, UK. We thank F.B. and S.B. for their kind participation.

Notes

¹There is also at least one report of prosopagnosia following a unilateral left hemisphere lesion (Mattson, Levin, & Grafman, 2000).