Prosopagnosia

From Psy3241

Agnosia disorders include various cognitive disorders that deal with "not knowing impariments

such as auditory agnosia which is the inability to recognize sounds or visual object agnosia

which is the inability to recognize familar objects that can be seen. Visual object agnosia is

similar to prosopagnosia and most patients with visual object agnosia also have prosopagnosia.

Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces on sight and is usually associated with

bilateral occipital damage. A patient named Michael was diagnosed with prosopagnosia and a few

other agnosia disorders. Michael is incapable of recognizing any faces desipte the familiarity

and he has not been able to for 17 years. He never recognizes his mother until she speaks and

when asked to identify himself in family photos he is incapable of doing so. He does have the

ability to recollect faces if asked to describe someone famous or a family member yet when

presented with a picture of that person he still is not able to recognize their face or to

identify the person by picture.