Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Understanding everyday events is essential for navigating and facilitating successful social interactions. Face recognition is thought to play a critical role in how we associate and interpret events in the real world. In this study, we explored this issue using a natural viewing paradigm in which participants watched a movie containing a rich and detailed narrative. To determine the importance of face recognition in event comprehension, we compared age-matched, neurotypical control participants and individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) – a lifelong deficit in the ability to recognize faces. After watching the movie, participants were assessed on their comprehension of the events from the movie. We found that DPs showed a significant reduction in their understanding of the events from the movie compared to neurotypical controls. We also found that individual differences in face recognition predicted event comprehension. Together, these results demonstrate the importance of face recognition for understanding naturally unfolding events in everyday life.

Keywords

face recognition developmental prosopagnosia natural viewing social cognition

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adams

Hills

P. J.

Bennetts

R. J.

Bate

(2020). Coping strategies for developmental prosopagnosia. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 30, 1996–2015. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2019.1623824

Baldassano

Hasson

Norman

K. A.

(2018). Representation of real-world event schemas during narrative perception. The Journal of Neuroscience, 38, 9689–9699. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0251-18.2018

Barton

J. J.

Albonico

Susilo

Duchaine

Corrow

S. L.

(2019). Object recognition in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 36, 54–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2019.1593821

Barton

J. J.

Corrow

S. L.

(2016). The problem of being bad at faces. Neuropsychologia, 89, 119–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.06.008

Bate

Adams

Bennetts

Line

(2019). Developmental prosopagnosia with concurrent topographical difficulties: A case report and virtual reality training programme. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 29, 1290–1312. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2017.1409640

Bate

Bennetts

R. J.

(2014). The rehabilitation of face recognition impairments: A critical review and future directions. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 491. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00491

Bate

Bennetts

R. J.

Tree

J. J.

Adams

Murray

(2019). The domain-specificity of face matching impairments in 40 cases of developmental prosopagnosia. Cognition, 192, 104031. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104031

Behrmann

Avidan

(2005). Congenital prosopagnosia: Face-blind from birth. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 180–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.02.011

Biotti

Gray

K. L.

Cook

(2017). Impaired body perception in developmental prosopagnosia. Cortex, 93, 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.05.006

10.

Biotti

Gray

K. L.

Cook

(2019). Is developmental prosopagnosia best characterised as an apperceptive or mnemonic condition? Neuropsychologia, 124, 285–298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.11.014

11.

Cook

Biotti

(2016). Developmental prosopagnosia. Current Biology, 26, R312–R313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.008

12.

Corrow

J. C.

Corrow

S. L.

Lee

Pancaroglu

Burles

Duchaine

Iaria

Barton

J. J.

(2016). Getting lost: Topographic skills in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia. Cortex, 76, 89–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2016.01.003

13.

Corrow

S. L.

Davies-Thompson

Fletcher

Hills

Corrow

J. C.

Barton

J. J.

(2019). Training face perception in developmental prosopagnosia through perceptual learning. Neuropsychologia, 134, 107196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107196

14.

Dalrymple

K. A.

Fletcher

Corrow

das Nair

Barton

J. J.

Yonas

Duchaine

(2014). “A room full of strangers every day”: The psychosocial impact of developmental prosopagnosia on children and their families. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 77, 144–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2014.06.001

15.

Davis

J. M.

McKone

Dennett

O'Connor

K. B.

O'Kearney

Palermo

(2011). Individual differences in the ability to recognise facial identity are associated with social anxiety. PLoS One, 6, e28800. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028800

16.

De Haan

E. H.

Campbell

(1991). A fifteen year follow-up of a case of developmental prosopagnosia. Cortex, 27, 489–509. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(13)80001-9

17.

DeGutis

Bahierathan

Barahona

Lee

Evans

T. C.

Shin

H. M.

Mishra

Likitlersuang

Wilmer

J. B.

(2023). What is the prevalence of developmental prosopagnosia? An empirical assessment of different diagnostic cutoffs. Cortex, 161, 51–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2022.12.014

18.

DeGutis

Cohan

Nakayama

(2014). Holistic face training enhances face processing in developmental prosopagnosia. Brain, 137, 1781–1798. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awu062

19.

DeGutis

J. M.

Bentin

Robertson

L. C.

d'Esposito

(2007). Functional plasticity in ventral temporal cortex following cognitive rehabilitation of a congenital prosopagnosic. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 1790–1802. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.11.1790

20.

DeGutis

J. M.

Chiu

Grosso

M. E.

Cohan

(2014). Face processing improvements in prosopagnosia: Successes and failures over the last 50 years. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 561. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00561

21.

Diaz

A. L.

(2008). Do I know you? A case study of prosopagnosia (face blindness). The Journal of School Nursing, 24, 284–289. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059840508322381

22.

Dobel

Bölte

Aicher

Schweinberger

S. R.

(2007). Prosopagnosia without apparent cause: Overview and diagnosis of six cases. Cortex, 43, 718–733. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70501-X

23.

Duchaine

B. C.

Nakayama

(2004). Developmental prosopagnosia and the Benton Facial Recognition test. Neurology, 62, 1219–1220. https://doi.org/10.1212/01.WNL.0000118297.03161.B3

24.

Duchaine

B. C.

Nakayama

(2006). Developmental prosopagnosia: A window to content-specific face processing. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16, 166–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2006.03.003

25.

Duchaine

Germine

Nakayama

(2007). Family resemblance: Ten family members with prosopagnosia and within-class object agnosia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 24, 419–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643290701380491

26.

Duchaine

Nakayama

(2006). The Cambridge Face Memory Test: Results for neurologically intact individuals and an investigation of its validity using inverted face stimuli and prosopagnosic participants. Neuropsychologia, 44, 576–585. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2005.07.001

27.

Engfors

L. M.

Wilmer

Palermo

Gignac

G. E.

Germine

L. T.

Jeffery

(2024). Face recognition's practical relevance: Social bonds, not social butterflies. Cognition, 250, 105816. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105816

28.

Epihova

Cook

Andrews

T. J.

(2022). Recognition of pareidolic objects in developmental prosopagnosic and neurotypical individuals. Cortex, 153, 21–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2022.04.011

29.

Epihova

Cook

Andrews

T. J.

(2023). Recognition of animal faces is impaired in developmental prosopagnosia. Cognition, 237, 105477. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105477

30.

Frith

C. D.

Frith

(2006). How we predict what other people are going to do. Brain Research, 1079, 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2005.12.126

31.

Fysh

M. C.

Ramon

(2022). Accurate but inefficient: Standard face identity matching tests fail to identify prosopagnosia. Neuropsychologia, 165, 108119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108119

32.

Garrido

Duchaine

DeGutis

(2018). Association vs dissociation and setting appropriate criteria for object agnosia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 35, 55–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2018.1431875

33.

Gray

K. L.

Bird

Cook

(2017). Robust associations between the 20-item prosopagnosia index and the Cambridge Face Memory Test in the general population. Royal Society Open Science, 4, 160923. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160923

34.

Hautus

M. J.

(1995). Corrections for extreme proportions and their biasing effects on estimated values of d′. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 27, 46–51. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203619

35.

Kennerknecht

Grueter

Welling

Wentzek

Horst

Edwards

Grueter

(2006). First report of prevalence of non-syndromic hereditary prosopagnosia (HPA). American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A, 140A, 1617–1622. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajmg.a.31343

36.

Klargaard

S. K.

Starrfelt

Petersen

Gerlach

(2016). Topographic processing in developmental prosopagnosia: Preserved perception but impaired memory of scenes. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 33, 405–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2016.1267000

37.

Kurby

C. A.

Zacks

J. M.

(2008). Segmentation in the perception and memory of events. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 72–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.11.004

38.

Landauer

T. K.

Foltz

P. W.

Laham

(1998). An introduction to Latent Semantic Analysis. Discourse Processes, 25, 259–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/01638539809545028

39.

Liesefeld

H. R.

Janczyk

(2019). Combining speed and accuracy to control for speed-accuracy trade-offs (?). Behavior Research Methods, 51, 40–60. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-1076-x

40.

Liesefeld

H. R.

Janczyk

(2023). Same same but different: Subtle but consequential differences between two measures to linearly integrate speed and accuracy (LISAS vs. BIS). Behavior Research Methods, 55, 1175–1192. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-022-01843-2

41.

Lowes

Hancock

P. J.

Bobak

A. K.

(2024). A new way of classifying developmental prosopagnosia: Balanced Integration Score. Cortex, 172, 159–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.12.011

42.

McKone

Dawel

Robbins

R. A.

Shou

Chen

Crookes

(2023). Why the other-race effect matters: Poor recognition of other-race faces impacts everyday social interactions. British Journal of Psychology, 114, 230–252. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12508

43.

Milivojevic

Varadinov

Grabovetsky

A. V.

Collin

S. H.

Doeller

C. F.

(2016). Coding of event nodes and narrative context in the hippocampus. The Journal of Neuroscience, 36, 12412–12424. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2889-15.2016

44.

Noad

K. N.

Andrews

T. J.

(2024). The importance of conceptual knowledge when becoming familiar with faces during naturalistic viewing. Cortex, 177, 290–301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2024.05.016

45.

Radvansky

G. A.

Zacks

J. M.

(2011). Event perception. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2, 608–620. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.133

46.

Redcay

Moraczewski

(2020). Social cognition in context: A naturalistic imaging approach. NeuroImage, 216, 116392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116392

47.

Russell

Duchaine

Nakayama

(2009). Super-recognizers: People with extraordinary face recognition ability. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 252–257. https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.16.2.252

48.

Schwartz

Yovel

(2016). The roles of perceptual and conceptual information in face recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 1493–1511. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000220

49.

Shah

Gaule

Sowden

Bird

Cook

(2015). The 20-item prosopagnosia index (PI20): A self-report instrument for identifying developmental prosopagnosia. Royal Society Open Science, 2, 140343. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.140343

50.

Sonkusare

Breakspear

Guo

(2019). Naturalistic stimuli in neuroscience: Critically acclaimed. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23, 699–714. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.05.004

51.

Tsantani

Vestner

Cook

(2021). The Twenty Item Prosopagnosia Index (PI20) provides meaningful evidence of face recognition impairment. Royal Society Open Science, 8, 202062. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.202062

52.

Wang

Zhen

Song

Liu

(2022). Behavioral and neural correlates of social network size: The unique and common contributions of face recognition and extraversion. Journal of Personality, 90, 294–305. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12666

53.

Yardley

McDermott

Pisarski

Duchaine

Nakayama

(2008). Psychosocial consequences of developmental prosopagnosia: A problem of recognition. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 65, 445–451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2008.03.013

Differences in face recognition predict the understanding of events during natural viewing

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References