Dissociation of facial attractiveness and distinctiveness processing in congenital prosopagnosia

Abstract

According to the influential model of Bruce and Young (1986) socially relevant facial information is processed separately from facial information leading to individual face recognition. In recent years functional imaging has identified a network of distinct occipitotemporal cortex areas for the processing of these two kinds of information. Functionally it is not clear at which processing level the “social” and the “recognition” pathways diverge. The study of subjects with a profound face recognition and learning deficit (congenital prosopagnosia—cPA) promises for a better understanding of this issue. We therefore tested the perception of attractiveness (a cue of prime social importance) and distinctiveness (a facial feature related to recognition) in 14 people with cPA. Although attractiveness ratings were highly consistent with controls, cPA subjects' distinctiveness ratings showed random patterns. This dissociation of normal attractiveness processing and impaired distinctiveness processing in cPA helps to specifies the nature of the impairment in this condition while shedding light on the functional architecture of normal face processing.

Keywords:

• Averageness
• Congenital prosopagnosia
• Dissociation
• Distinctiveness processing
• Facial attractiveness
• Face recognition

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a research grant (FNK) of the University of Bamberg to CCC. We thank Melissa Võ and Andrea Lyman for proofreading the manuscript, as well as three anonymous reviewers and Jim Tanaka for inspiring comments and helpful remarks that helped to improve the manuscript. Last but not least, we are very thankful for the great effort and support that our prosopagnosic participants made by taking part in our study.