SUMMARY Two cases of a dissociation between prosopagnosia and impaired capacity to match familiar faces were studied. Recognition of familiar faces recovered in the first patient, whereas prosopagnosia persisted in the second patient despite recovery of matching unfamiliar faces and other visuoperceptive skills. This double dissociation is discussed in relation to current views of prosopagnosia.Prosopagnosia is a rare condition in which recognition of faces is impaired, although the patient can usually identify people by their voice and visual features such as clothing or stature. One formulation postulates an impairment of perceptual classification (within a class of objects) which Whiteley and Warrington' found to be specific for faces. An alternative formulation postulates a memory deficit selective for faces2 which Meadows3 has attributed to an occipitotemporal disconnection. We report two cases of prosopagnosia with contrasting symptomatology. In the first case the prosopagnosia, but not other visuoperceptive defects, resolved while the second patient remained prosopagnosic despite improvement in other visuoperceptive capacities, including matching of unfamiliar faces.
Tachistoscopic visual perception was examined in 42 right-handed closed head injury patients and 10 normal controls by determining the duration for recognition of a trigram in central vision and by employing a visual field laterality task. Thresholds did not vary with severity of injury but were significantly longer than those of controls for midly, moderately, and severely injured patients. A nonsignificant right visual field superiority for trigram recognition was exhibited by all groups. Recognition of trigrams in either visual field was impaired in moderately and severely injured patients relative to controls. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.
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