Introduction

Prosopagnosia is a disease that reduces a personís ability to recognize and identify familiar faces. The term is derived from the Greek word for ìfaceî (prosopon) and ìnot knowingî (agnosia). It is one of many forms of visual agnosia, and is caused by lesions in the medial occipitotemporal region of the brain (Takamura 1996).

ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Patients with prosopagnosia know that a face is a face, and know what different parts of the face are, but are unable to name whom the familiar face belongs (Damasio 1982).

ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ The symptoms of prosopagnosia were first described by Wilbrand in 1892, but the term was coined by Joachim Bodamer in 1947 (Takamura 1996).Ý Bodamerís patient was a 24-year old man who suffered from a bullet-wound injury to the head.Ý The man was of normal intelligence and memory, but couldnít recognize the faces of himself, his friends, his family, or even his dog (Szpir 1992).Ý He could, however, still identify people through other means such as listening to them, touching them, or watching how they move.Ý

ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ The understanding of prosopagnosia and the general process of face perception go hand in hand.Ý Because prosopagnosia is not a unitary disorder it has been argued that face perception involves a number of stages, each of which can be separately damaged. This is shown in the wide range of impairments that a patient with prosopagnosia can have ñ both qualitative and quantitative (Bruce 1986).

ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Originally, it was thought that prosopagnosia was only associated with a brain injury acquired during adulthood, but recent studies show it occurring in childhood development as well.Ý Prosopagnosia is a very rare disease, which means that case studies have been very important in the study of and theories about this disease.

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