By Emily Kingston
Prosopagnosia (pro-so-pag-NOZE-ee-uh), also known as face-blindness, is a neurological condition that renders a person incapable of identifying faces. It is typically attributed to damage in a certain area of the brain, but is now thought to sometimes have genetic causes.
A person walks up to you and says hello. Here’s how your brain breaks down this simple event.
It registers the VISUAL IMAGE of that person. Body shape, eyes, hair color, height, mouth shape, clothing, etc.
Using GENERAL PATTERN RECOGNITION, your brain tells you that this is a “person,” and that you are looking at his or her “face.”
Specific areas of the brain calculate the SEX and AGE of the person. The brain is also able to ascertain the general ATTRACTIVENESS and FACIAL EXPRESSION of the person, as well as what he or she is focusing his or her ATTENTION on.
You AUDITORILY process the person’s voice, and the meaning of his or her words.
If things are working properly, your brain takes the visual image (as well as other factors) and compares it against all available information in order to IDENTIFY who this person is. “Joe” or “that woman who works at the grocery store.”
The identification process is where things break down for a prosopagnosic. While they can visually SEE a face, their brain does not make the connections necessary to identify who that individual is.
People with prosopagnosia, however, are frequently able to learn to use factors other than facial recognition to ascertain the identity of someone. They depend on other cues such as the location in which the person is encountered, communication with that person, hairstyle or other visual attributes, type of clothing, voice, or key traits or characteristics of that person.
For more information, go to
www.Prosopagnosia.com or
www.FaceBlind.org
To see a short video about a woman with prosopagnosia, go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwCrxomPbtY&feature=related