Facial recognition within the brain [Face Blindness] | Science Nation

Behavioral and brain imaging data reveal new details about how facial recognition works in the brain

Description: People with acquired prosopagnosia recognize few faces, a condition known also as "face blindness." These are people who have suffered brain damage that interferes with their ability to recognize faces, even the faces of people they have met many times. The condition is rare. Only a few thousand people across North America have it.

With support from the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, psychologist Brad Duchaine and his team are studying the brains of 20 people with acquired prosopagnosia to better understand the computational and neural basis of face processing in general.

The research will help scientists develop a classification system for the condition and advance understanding of how different face processing abilities, such as identity, expression and gaze, are organized in the brain.

The research in this episode was supported by NSF award #1634098 Testing and building models of face perception via acquired prosopagnosia.

Miles O'Brien, Science Nation Correspondent
Kate Tobin, Science Nation Producer

[gabrielruiz]

I have it and I'm fine with it most of the time! It's bad when a friend shows up with someone else saying "hey, look who I brought!" and I'm like "hmmm, yes, a person!" and they expect some kind of specific reaction from me and I fail to do it and they are all like "yeah, guess he wasn't so happy to see you after all these months"

[RedBroski]

I've been face blind as long as I can remember. I can recognize myself, parents, friends, and some celebrities. But aside from that, watching movies tends to be very confusing, and Ive embarassed myself in front of long lost friends, my boss, teachers, and extended family various times because I really have no idea who they are. It helps if someones got brightly dyed hair or a nervous tic or weird spot on their face though.

[x]

I can recognise famous people because I've seen their face many times but with people I've met briefly, it's a guessing game. For example, I went for an interview with five panellists, I spoke to all of them. A month later I met all of time again but only remembered three of the five people. I couldn't remember or recognise the main person asking the questions... That can't be normal :|

[emryswalton]

I'm good at noticing small details about faces, and often rely on that a lot, but if I look at a face as a whole, especially on TV, I really struggle and can only differentiate people if they have a birth mark or a widows peak or something.
But then I also have Asperger's so maybe it's just part of that.

[Patrick.Weightman]

I've always found comfort in people open about their conditions, even if I can only empathize. But she's darling, I'd love to chat with her!

[jari]

I forget how people look ( faces ) they just fade away - If i dont see them for months they are new person for me but I see some familiarity first then they snap into place - not that it's a problem since I rather like notion I can see faces how others might see them also - anyway I noticed this the last 10 (20 ?) years -I well above 50y.

[dangmefinnish]

I wonder if I am suffering froom this mildly or am i just not paying attention to people enough. Almost daily basis I encounter someone who I should know very well but I have no idea who they are.

[birdman]

I have face blindness but I never suffered from any type of trauma. It’s a weird disorder

[davidpage]

Good video but the sound track is just porno.

[jimnorthland]

I can forget a person if I look away for ten seconds from a group of three people. I am completely confused by movies from Korea or other Asian countries. The differences are just too small. My memory for other images is so good that I am frequently asked to identify photographs for museums and researchers.

[thatramendude]

After dealing with a lot of emotional trauma I'm pretty sure I've developed it or at least a version of it. Being that I can't recognize my friends as their face warps infront of my eyes or how if I dislike a person I can only see their face as a void and my most hated thing about them. It sucks cause I can't even recognize my own boyfriend most times.

[ninadgoldsmith]

Imagine being a teacher and having prosopagnosia💀

[visarbilali]

Can you please help? Faces of people that disgust me, that i haven't seen in very long, i confuse them to those of other people, random . Why does it happen?

[timothybucky]

patient DF, who developed a severe form of apperceptive agnosia following carbon monoxide-induced anoxia. Although DF's visual system is unable to use shape information to make perceptual judgments and discriminations about an object, she is able to use the same information to accurately guide her prehensile movements to those same targets. For example, even though DF is unable to discriminate solid blocks of differing dimensions, she accurately scales her grasp when picking up the blocks, opening her hand wider for larger blocks than she does for smaller ones, just as people with normal vision do. DF also rotates her hand and wrist appropriately when reaching out to objects in different orientations, despite being unable to describe or distinguish the size, orientation, and shape of the different objects. It appears that although the perceptual mechanisms in DF's damaged ventral stream can no longer deliver any perceptual information about the size, orientation, and shape of objects she is viewing, the visuomotor mechanisms in her intact dorsal stream that control the programming and execution of visually guided movements remain sensitive to these same object features.

[RKingis]

I'm legally blind & faceblind. Sometimes I might recognize a face on a screen, but that's it.

[Aritul]

Fascinating! I heard about this NPR a few years ago, I think, and then recently on a show I was watching, _My Holo Love_ .

[NeverEver]

So face recognition is done on the side of the brain which is specialized on detecting danger.

[Sayyttan]

Andito ka din ba pagkatapos mo mapanood yung KUNG PAANO SYA NAWALA ?para surerin kung totoo yung Face Blindness

[trevormortis]

now that you mentioned it, I suddenly suffer from prosopagnosia only when I see asian dramas.

[Emil-lfno]

I straight up could never recognize faces