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Prosopagnosia (Face Recognition)

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Face blindness; Visual agnosia for faces

Definition

Prosopagnosia is a subtype of visual agnosia characterized by an impairment in the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one’s own face.

Introduction

The word prosopagnosia comes from the Greek prosopos (face or person) and gnosis (knowledge). Although acquired disorders in face recognition have been described since the nineteenth century, Bodamer (1947) was the first researcher to use the term “prosopagnosia” to define the disorder in face recognition, isolated from other types of visual agnosia.

Clinical Chartacteristics

The patient who suffers from prosopagnosia loses the ability to recognize people by the face and has to resort to the recognition of accessory aspects to the face such as voice or clothing to achieve identification. It is a selective deficit of facial identity, frequently (but not always) retaining the ability to interpret other types of facial information, such as emotional expression, age, and...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sechenov University, Moscow, Russia

    Alfredo Ardila

  2. Albizu University, Miami, FL, USA

    Alfredo Ardila

Authors
  1. Alfredo Ardila
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alfredo Ardila .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, MI, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Russell Jackson

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Ardila, A. (2019). Prosopagnosia (Face Recognition). In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3617-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3617-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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