Congenital Prosopagnosia in Italian population: An integrated methodological approach

Congenital Prosopagnosia (CP) is a severe deficit of face perception and recognition not caused by brain damage and presumably present from birth. It seems to affect around 2,5% of the Caucasian population but the prevalence in Italy is yet unknown. Thus, one major goal of this study is to determine epidemiological data in an Italian sample, by using an integrated methodological approach with Self-Questionnaire for the evaluation of face ability, objective tests currently used for the formal diagnosis, and specific designed experimental procedures. The questionnaire was administered to a large sample of subjects, from which we selected potential individuals with CP. To further assess the different behavioral characteristics of face processing in the selected CPs a battery of different tasks was employed. Our preliminary results showed a specific impairment for faces, not present for other perceptual categories (greebles and abstract stimuli). Specifically, an absence of the Face Inversion Effect suggested that congenital, as acquired prosopagnosics, might have an impaired holistic processing of faces. Furthermore, by using a famous face recognition test inconsistent results were found reflecting the use of compensatory strategies and the possibility of the existence of a weaker memory face representation. This hypothesis was strengthened also by the evidence of a specific impairment of CPs in an old-new memory paradigm. All in all, the present study reports evidence for CP in Italians, and suggests the employment of an integrated methodological approach to evaluate perceptual and cognitive aspects of face recognition.