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Brain Sciences
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Insights into Developmental Prosopagnosia
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Insights into Developmental Prosopagnosia

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Developmental Neuroscience".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 9435

Special Issue Editors

Dr. John Towler

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Health, and Life Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
Interests: cognitive neuroscience; experimental psychology; face perception; prosopagnosia
Dr. Jodie Davies-Thompson

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Health, and Life Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
Interests: face recognition; face processing; prosopagnosia; fmri; visual plasticity; deafness; blindness

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by severe difficulties in recognising human faces in the absence of low-level visual impairment or general intellectual difficulties. Individuals with this condition often remain without diagnosis and may experience psychosocial consequences as a result of their facial processing difficulties. Research in this area has intensified in recent years, and the aim of this Special Issue is to gather cutting-edge studies which provide insights into the nature of this selective disorder. Acceptable submissions to this Special Issue include work characterising the cognitive and perceptual difficulties experienced by individuals with DP as compared to neurotypical control groups, as well as brain-imaging investigations into the neuronal substrates of atypical face processing (including fMRI, EEG). We also welcome research addressing issues in prosopagnosia diagnosis (including self-report measurements) or studies aiming to uncover the psychosocial consequences of the condition.

Dr. John Towler
Dr. Jodie Davies-Thompson
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • prosopagnosia
  • developmental
  • face recognition
  • face blindness
  • face processing system

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 1466 KiB  
Article
Face Feature Change Detection Ability in Developmental Prosopagnosia and Super-Recognisers
by Jodie Davies-Thompson, Daniel Morgan, Josh P Davis and John R. Towler
Brain Sci. 2024, 14(6), 561; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14060561 - 30 May 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1024
Abstract
In non-clinical populations, facial features (eyes, nose, mouth) may vary in their contribution to face identity perception. Changes to whole faces are easier to detect than changes to individual features, and eye changes are typically easier to detect than mouth changes, which in [...] Read more.
In non-clinical populations, facial features (eyes, nose, mouth) may vary in their contribution to face identity perception. Changes to whole faces are easier to detect than changes to individual features, and eye changes are typically easier to detect than mouth changes, which in turn are easier to detect than nose changes. However, how this differs for people with face recognition difficulties (developmental prosopagnosia; DP) and for individuals with superior face recognition abilities (super-recognisers; SR) is not clear; although findings from previous studies have suggested differences, the nature of this difference is not understood. The aim of this study was to examine whether differences in the ability to detect feature changes in DPs and SRs were (a) quantitative, meaning that the pattern across feature changes remained the same but there was an overall upwards or downwards shift in performance, or (b) qualitative, meaning that the pattern across feature changes was different. Using a change detection task in which individual face features (eyes, nose, mouth) changed between sequentially presented faces, we found that while prosopagnosics showed a quantitative difference in performance with a downwards shift across all conditions, super-recognisers only showed qualitative differences: they were better able to detect when the face was the same and were marginally (but not non-significantly) worse at detecting when the eyes changed. Further, the only condition which distinguished between the three groups was the ability to identify when the same face was presented, with SRs being better than controls, and controls being better than DPs. Our findings suggest that, in feature-matching tasks, differences for DPs are due to them being overall worse at the task, while SRs use a qualitatively different strategy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insights into Developmental Prosopagnosia)
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14 pages, 2238 KiB  
Article
Evidence for a Classical Dissociation between Face and Object Recognition in Developmental Prosopagnosia
by Christian Gerlach and Randi Starrfelt
Brain Sci. 2024, 14(1), 107; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14010107 - 22 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1560
Abstract
It is still a matter of debate whether developmental prosopagnosia is a disorder selective to faces or whether object recognition is also affected. In a previous study, based on a small sample of developmental prosopagnosics (DPs; N = 10), we found impairments in [...] Read more.
It is still a matter of debate whether developmental prosopagnosia is a disorder selective to faces or whether object recognition is also affected. In a previous study, based on a small sample of developmental prosopagnosics (DPs; N = 10), we found impairments in both domains although the difficulties were most pronounced for faces. Importantly, impairments with faces and objects were systematically related. We suggested that that the seemingly disproportional impairment for faces in DP was likely to reflect differences between stimulus categories in visual similarity. Here, we aimed to replicate these findings in a larger, independent sample of DPs (N = 21) using the same experimental paradigms. Contrary to our previous results, we found no disproportional effect of visual similarity on performance with faces or objects in the new DP group when compared to controls (N = 21). The new DP group performed within the control range, and significantly better than the old DP-group, on sensitive and demanding object recognition tasks, and we can demonstrate a classical dissociation between face and object recognition at the group level. These findings are perhaps the strongest evidence yet presented for a face-specific deficit in developmental prosopagnosia. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insights into Developmental Prosopagnosia)
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15 pages, 1883 KiB  
Article
Familial Transmission of Developmental Prosopagnosia: New Case Reports from an Extended Family and Identical Twins
by Sarah Bate, Ebony Murray and Rachel J. Bennetts
Brain Sci. 2024, 14(1), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14010049 - 4 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1715
Abstract
Existing evidence suggests that developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a surprisingly prevalent condition, with some individuals describing lifelong difficulties with facial identity recognition. Together with case reports of multiple family members with the condition, this evidence suggests that DP is inherited in at least [...] Read more.
Existing evidence suggests that developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a surprisingly prevalent condition, with some individuals describing lifelong difficulties with facial identity recognition. Together with case reports of multiple family members with the condition, this evidence suggests that DP is inherited in at least some instances. Here, we offer some novel case series that further support the heritability of the condition. First, we describe five adult siblings who presented to our lab with symptoms of DP. Second, for the first known time in the literature, we describe a pair of adult identical twins who contacted us in the belief that they both experience DP. The condition was confirmed in three of the five siblings (with minor symptoms observed in the remaining two) and in both twins. Supplementary assessments suggested that all individuals also experienced some degree of difficulty with facial identity perception, but that object recognition was preserved. These findings bolster the evidence supporting the heritability of DP and suggest that it can be a specific impairment in some cases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insights into Developmental Prosopagnosia)
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Review

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34 pages, 1983 KiB  
Review
The Neural Correlates of Developmental Prosopagnosia: Twenty-Five Years on
by Valerio Manippa, Annalisa Palmisano, Martina Ventura and Davide Rivolta
Brain Sci. 2023, 13(10), 1399; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13101399 - 30 Sep 2023
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4287
Abstract
Faces play a crucial role in social interactions. Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) refers to the lifelong difficulty in recognizing faces despite the absence of obvious signs of brain lesions. In recent decades, the neural substrate of this condition has been extensively investigated. While early [...] Read more.
Faces play a crucial role in social interactions. Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) refers to the lifelong difficulty in recognizing faces despite the absence of obvious signs of brain lesions. In recent decades, the neural substrate of this condition has been extensively investigated. While early neuroimaging studies did not reveal significant functional and structural abnormalities in the brains of individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DPs), recent evidence identifies abnormalities at multiple levels within DPs’ face-processing networks. The current work aims to provide an overview of the convergent and contrasting findings by examining twenty-five years of neuroimaging literature on the anatomo-functional correlates of DP. We included 55 original papers, including 63 studies that compared the brain structure (MRI) and activity (fMRI, EEG, MEG) of healthy control participants and DPs. Despite variations in methods, procedures, outcomes, sample selection, and study design, this scoping review suggests that morphological, functional, and electrophysiological features characterize DPs’ brains, primarily within the ventral visual stream. Particularly, the functional and anatomical connectivity between the Fusiform Face Area and the other face-sensitive regions seems strongly impaired. The cognitive and clinical implications as well as the limitations of these findings are discussed in light of the available knowledge and challenges in the context of DP. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insights into Developmental Prosopagnosia)
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