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Psychological Research (2007) 71:583590 DOI 10.1007/s00426-006-0068-0
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Gaze behaviour in hereditary prosopagnosia
Gudrun Schwarzer Susanne Huber Martina Grter Thomas Grter Cornelia Gro Melanie Hipfel Ingo Kennerknecht
Received: 11 November 2004 / Accepted: 25 April 2006 / Published online: 10 June 2006 Springer-Verlag 2006
Abstract Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize someone by the face alone in the absence of sensory or intellectual impairment. In contrast to the acquired form of prosopagnosia we studied the congenital form. Since we could recently show that this form is inherited as a simple monogenic trait we called it hereditary form. To determine whether not only face recognition and neuronal processing but also the perceptual acquisition of facial information is specic to prosopagnosia, we studied the gaze behaviour of four hereditary prosopagnosics in comparison to matched control subjects. This rarely studied form of prosopagnosia ensures that decits are limited to face recognition. Whereas the control participants focused their gaze on the central facial features, the hereditary prosopagnosics showed a signicantly different gaze behaviour. They had a more dispersed gaze and also xated external facial features. Thus, the face recognition impairment of the hereditary prosopagnosics is reected in their gaze behaviour.
Introduction
Human beings are extremely competent at recognizing faces quickly and accurately (Bruce, 1988; Bruce & Young, 1998; Carey, 1996). In the last 2 decades, results of electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies suggest that the recognition of faces is a highly specic process. This view is supported by the fact that a specic impairment such as prosopagnosia exists that concerns the recognition of faces only. The most important characteristic of prosopagnosiaa term that is rst introduced by Bodamer (1947)is the difculty in recognizing famous or familiar faces without marked impairment of the recognition of other visual stimuli (Benton, 1990; de Gelder & Rouw, 2000; Jones & Tranel, 2001; McConachie, 1976; Nunn, Postma, & Pearson, 2001; Temple, 1992).
Almost all cases reported in the literature are of the acquired form. The diagnosis in these cases is often self-reported because of the sudden loss of a hitherto unimpaired skill. The congenital or developmental forms are apparent from early childhood and typically no traumatic, toxic or other exogen affects are known. Participants with this lifelong impairment are thinking of having just low-functioning (face)...