Component processes of human face perception in typical and atypical individuals

These are the behavioural data from the main experiments conducted in this research project, with participants with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) and age-matched control participants.

For most people, face perception is fast and effortless. However, some people without perceptual or intellectual impairments and without neurological damage find face recognition extremely difficult.

In the past three years, we have recruited a large group of face-blind individuals, and have used EEG-based methods to assess the sources of their face recognition problems. So far, our results have shown that some face-blind individuals have impaired visual memory for familiar faces. For others, access to these face memories is disrupted. We have also found initial evidence that face perception is atypical in face-blindness. We will now test whether this affects specific aspects of face perception, including the perception of salient face parts, the global processing of facial configurations, or the perception of faces from different viewpoints. We will use eye-tracking to study whether face-blind people look at faces differently, and whether they use different parts of a face when trying to identify it.

This research will expand our knowledge of why some people have severe deficits in face recognition. Such deficits can have an enormous impact on their social lives. Many have difficulty maintaining friendships due to perceived snubs and their recognition difficulties at work can be extremely troubling.