| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||||
From the Departments of Neurology (Drs. Barton, Press, Keenen, and O’Connor) and Ophthalmology (Dr. Barton), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School; and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University (Dr. Barton), MA.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Jason J.S. Barton, Department of Neurology, KS 452, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215; e-mail: jbarton{at}caregroup.harvard.edu
Background: Prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces, is associated with medial occipitotemporal lesions, especially on the right. Functional imaging has revealed a focal region in the right fusiform gyrus activated specifically during face perception.
Objective: The study attempted to determine whether lesions of this region were associated with defects in face perception in patients with prosopagnosia.
Methods: Five patients with acquired prosopagnosia were tested. They were asked to discriminate faces in which the spatial configuration of features had been altered. This was contrasted with their discrimination of changes in feature color, an alteration that does not affect spatial relations.
Results: All four patients whose lesions included the right fusiform face area were severely impaired in discriminating changes in the spatial position of features. The one patient with anterior bilateral lesions was normal in this perceptual ability. For three of the five patients, accuracy was normal for changes in eye color. When subjects knew that only changes in mouth position would be shown, performance improved markedly in two of the four patients who were impaired in the initial test.
Conclusion: Perception of facial configuration is impaired in patients with prosopagnosia whose lesions involve the right fusiform gyrus. This deficit is especially manifest when attention must be distributed across numerous facial elements. It does not occur with more anterior bilateral temporal lesions. Loss of this ability may contribute to the recognition defect in some forms of prosopagnosia.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  S. Gilaie-Dotan, A. Perry, Y. Bonneh, R. Malach, and S. Bentin Seeing with Profoundly Deactivated Mid-level Visual Areas: Non-hierarchical Functioning in the Human Visual Cortex Cereb Cortex, July 1, 2009; 19(7): 1687 - 1703. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 G. Van Belle, M. De Smet, P. De Graef, L. Van Gool, and K. Verfaillie Configural and featural processing during face perception: A new stimulus set Behav Res Methods, May 1, 2009; 41(2): 279 - 283. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 K. A. Josephs, J. L. Whitwell, P. Vemuri, M. L. Senjem, B. F. Boeve, D. S. Knopman, G. E. Smith, R. J. Ivnik, R. C. Petersen, and C. R. Jack Jr The anatomic correlate of prosopagnosia in semantic dementia Neurology, November 11, 2008; 71(20): 1628 - 1633. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 G. YOVEL and N. KANWISHER The representations of spacing and part-based information are associated for upright faces but dissociated for objects: Evidence from individual differences Psychon Bull Rev, October 1, 2008; 15(5): 933 - 939. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 D. A. Trauner Right Hemisphere Brain Damage in Children Neurophysiology and Neurogenic Speech and Language Disorders, June 1, 2008; 18(2): 73 - 81. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 N. Kriegeskorte, E. Formisano, B. Sorger, and R. Goebel Individual faces elicit distinct response patterns in human anterior temporal cortex PNAS, December 18, 2007; 104(51): 20600 - 20605. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
R. Righart and B. de Gelder Impaired face and body perception in developmental prosopagnosia PNAS, October 23, 2007; 104(43): 17234 - 17238. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. J.S. Barton, R. L. Hefter, M. V. Cherkasova, and D. S. Manoach Investigations of face expertise in the social developmental disorders Neurology, August 28, 2007; 69(9): 860 - 870. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 N. Kanwisher and G. Yovel The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces Phil Trans R Soc B, December 29, 2006; 361(1476): 2109 - 2128. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. Schiltz, B. Sorger, R. Caldara, F. Ahmed, E. Mayer, R. Goebel, and B. Rossion Impaired Face Discrimination in Acquired Prosopagnosia Is Associated with Abnormal Response to Individual Faces in the Right Middle Fusiform Gyrus Cereb Cortex, April 1, 2006; 16(4): 574 - 586. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. J.S. Barton and M. V. Cherkasova Impaired spatial coding within objects but not between objects in prosopagnosia Neurology, July 26, 2005; 65(2): 270 - 274. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. J.S. Barton, M. V. Cherkasova, and R. Hefter The covert priming effect of faces in prosopagnosia Neurology, December 14, 2004; 63(11): 2062 - 2068. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 J. J. S. Barton, M. V. Cherkasova, R. Hefter, T. A. Cox, M. O'Connor, and D. S. Manoach Are patients with social developmental disorders prosopagnosic? Perceptual heterogeneity in the Asperger and socio-emotional processing disorders Brain, August 1, 2004; 127(8): 1706 - 1716. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 D. Cox, E. Meyers, and P. Sinha Contextually Evoked Object-Specific Responses in Human Visual Cortex Science, April 2, 2004; 304(5667): 115 - 117. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
B. Rossion, R. Caldara, M. Seghier, A.-M. Schuller, F. Lazeyras, and E. Mayer A network of occipito-temporal face-sensitive areas besides the right middle fusiform gyrus is necessary for normal face processing Brain, November 1, 2003; 126(11): 2381 - 2395. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. Joubert, O. Felician, E. Barbeau, A. Sontheimer, J. J. Barton, M. Ceccaldi, and M. Poncet Impaired configurational processing in a case of progressive prosopagnosia associated with predominant right temporal lobe atrophy Brain, November 1, 2003; 126(11): 2537 - 2550. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
B. de Gelder, I. Frissen, J. Barton, and N. Hadjikhani A modulatory role for facial expressions in prosopagnosia PNAS, October 28, 2003; 100(22): 13105 - 13110. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. J.S. Barton and M. Cherkasova Face imagery and its relation to perception and covert recognition in prosopagnosia Neurology, July 22, 2003; 61(2): 220 - 225. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
G. Glosser, A.E. Salvucci, and N.D. Chiaravalloti Naming and recognizing famous faces in temporal lobe epilepsy Neurology, July 8, 2003; 61(1): 81 - 86. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
