Developmental Prosopagnosia: A Functional Analysis and Implications for Remediation

A single case of prosopagnosia is described, which is a follow-up to an earlier report ( McConachie, 1976 ). The case, A.B., had a developmental aetiology that seems to have been unique at the time of the first report. Visuo-sensory function was essentially intact. Face recognition was very severely compromised in contrast to her other recognition skills. There was evidence of mild impairment in the precise identification of other visually presented objects. Detailed exploration of her face-processing deficit showed (a) that although A.B. could make face vs. non-face judgements, her ability to make other decisions about faces, including those based on expression, gender, age and direction of gaze, was compromised; (b) that she showed reasonable (borderline) performance on Benton and Van Alleys face-matching task, but had very impaired immediate memory for unknown faces; and (c) that she showed no covert recognition ability for faces, despite good knowledge of those individuals from names. In terms of a cognitive model of face recognition ( Bruce & Young, 1986 ), we argue that A.B. has underspecified structural encoding of faces. We speculate on this deficit in A.B. in terms of her other perceptual disorders as well as her close similarity to a case of childhood prosopagnosia: discussed in K.F. Young and Ellis (1989 ) and her 78 differences from a new case of developmental prosopagnosia. We offer some suggestions for remediation in this and similar cases, based on a review of the small extant literature.