prosopagnosia

n. Neurological disorder characterized by a partial or total inability to recognize faces. It is also known as face blindness and corresponds to a particular subtype of visual agnosia. Some patients with prosopagnosia are even unable to recognize their own face in photos or when looking at themselves in a mirror. Frequently, face recognition defects are accompanied by other types of recognition impairments (recognizing cars, flowers, animals, etc.), though sometimes they appear to be relatively restricted to the identification of human faces. Patients with prosopagnosia know how a face is (that is, they know that a face includes two eyes, a nose, etc.) but fail in recognizing individual faces. Prosopagnosia has been proposed to be interpreted as a defect in recognizing the individual members (specific flowers, animals, faces, etc.) of a visual-perceptual category. Prosopagnosia is the result of brain pathology, usually involving the right fusiform gyrus (temporal-occipital) or both the right and left fusiform gyri. Prosopagnosia can result from a diversity of etiologies, including stroke, traumatic brain injury, or neurodegenerative diseases. Cases of developmental prosopagnosia have been described. It has been observed that people who have difficulties in social relations (e.g., autism, Asperger's syndrome) may have some difficulties in recognizing faces. – AA

▶ See also AGNOSIA