Essay On Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia

Diogo Soares

Physiological Psychology

April 27, 2014

Heather Joppich

Prosopagnosia

Dr. P was an accomplished singer, a gifted painter, and a teacher. It was while teaching at school that the first onset of problems began. Dr. P would sometimes not recognized students faces when they presented themselves, although he was able to discern who was who by hearing their voice. Dr P. increasingly failed to see faces, and even saw faces that were not there. Initially, Dr. Sacks did not understand why this charming and educated man had been referred to him, although there was something rather odd with the way Dr. P oriented his eyes while addressing him. It seemed that, while talking and looking at Dr. Sacks, Dr. P focused on individual features—like his ears, nose, or chin—instead of looking at his face as a whole. It was while performing a routine neurological examination that the first queer experience took place. Dr. P made the strangest of mistakes, confusing his foot for his shoe. Dr. Sacks continued examining Dr. P. His vision seemed fine but he had rather curious responses to certain images presented to him. He picked up different individual features like a shape or color, but could not see the image as a whole. However, what bewildered Dr. Sacks was when Dr. P, suddenly assuming the session was over, grabbed his wife´s head and tried to put it on. He had apparently mistaken his wife for a hat!

Dr. Sacks saw Dr. P again in the comfort of the latter’s home to get a better sense of Dr. P´s visual processing. Identifying different shapes of solids, the suits of a pack of cards and various well-known cartoons were no problem. However, Dr. P could not identify the actors or their facial expressions in a ...

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...l attributes, or clothing to recognize others. Face blindness is thought to be the result of abnormalities, damage, or impairment in a fold in the brain that appears to coordinate the neural systems that control facial perception and memory—the right fusiform gyrus. Face blindness can be caused by a stroke, a traumatic brain injury, or certain neurodegenerative diseases. While no treatment for this disorder yet exists, there are certain methods of therapy that can be used. It is possible to manage the disorder by using alternative cues to recognize other people. Future research and studies of types of face blindness will produce a better understanding of the specific locations and important roles of brain areas involved in ordinary facial perception and recognition. Such breakthroughs may lead to treatment methods and one day to a possible cure for face blindness.