Impairment of voice and face recognition in patients with hemispheric damage.
Voice and face recognition were tested in 21 left- and 9 right-hemisphere-damaged patients. Test materials were photographs and recordings of famous political and entertainment personalities. Pathological face recognition (prosopagnosia) and voice recognition (phonagnosia) were both significantly more prevalent in the right-hemisphere group. Only one instance of prosopagnosia and one of phonagnosia were observed in the left-hemisphere group, all of whom were aphasic. Of the right-hemisphere cases, there were four instances of each agnosia, with three patients showing a dual impairment. These findings are discussed in relation to differential modes of processing by the two cerebral hemispheres.
D000377:Agnosia / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005145:Face; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014831:Voice