Also known as ‘facial blindness’ and ‘facial agnosia’, it is a neurological disorder usually involving damage to the posterior right hemisphere (viz., fusiform gyrus) resulting in complete or partial loss of the ability to recognize familiar faces. However, some individuals with prosopagnosia are challenged in be able to distinguish between unknown faces and still others cannot recognize their own faces. While most attention has so far been devoted to understanding acquired prosopagnosia due, for example to a stroke or neurodegenerative diseases), there is also ‘congenital’ or ‘developmental’ prosopagnosia (perhaps in the case of Oliver Sacks). Moreover, it is also evident in cases of autism and other developmental disorders such as Turner’s syndrome and Williams syndrome. Such cases implicate a genetic deletion or mutation. As can be imagined, the disorder has severe social consequences and treatment is directed towards compensatory strategies such as voice recognition. Its prevalence has been subjected to little research, but one estimate puts it at 1 in 50 people (with developmental prosopagnosia seemingly more prevalent).
See Agnosia, Configural processing, Face processing, Facial recognition, Fusiform gyrus, Inferior temporal cortex (ITC), N170, Turner’s syndrome, Williams syndrome