title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Behavioural Brain Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. m.j.riddoch@bham.ac.uk
authors.forename: M Jane
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Riddoch
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.forename: R Martyn
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Bracewell
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Boutsen
authors.forename: Glyn W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Humphreys
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D005795:Generalization, Stimulus / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D020766:Intracranial Embolism / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D020238:Prosopagnosia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology