Departmental Colloquium: Martin Eimer (Birkbeck College) ERP studies of face processing in developmental prosopagnosia: Neuropsychological and neurodevelopmental perspectives

ERP studies of face processing in developmental prosopagnosia:

Neuropsychological and neurodevelopmental perspectives

Martin Eimer

Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK

People with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) show severe face recognition deficits that typically emerge in early childhood, without history of neurological damage. I will present and discuss recent findings from ERP studies of face perception and face recognition in DP. The generic face-sensitivity of the N170 component is preserved in most DPs, suggesting intact rapid detection of face components. In contrast, DPs show atypical N170 face inversion effects, indicative of impaired configural face processing. In line with a neurodevelopmental interpretation of DP, these effects are similar to those observed for other developmental disorders, and during earlier stages of typical development. Identity-sensitive ERP components (N250, P600f) that are markers of successful face recognition are very similar for DPs and control participants, indicating that some aspects of the core face processing network operate normally in DP. However, there is a distinct sub-group of DPs which shows covert face recognition effects for the N250 component, indicating that visual face memory is intact but is disconnected from semantic memory in these individuals. I will discuss the implications of these findings for neuropsychological and neurodevelopmental perspectives on DP.