Faces inform about several details of a person, which include but are not limited to identity, age, mood, attractiveness, and approachability. It is remarkable how much information can be read from faces considering their simple composition of internal features, i.e., two eyes above the nose and a mouth. Therefore, faces mean a kind of stimuli that we rely on to navigate in social situations and interactions. For successful recognition, speed is of the essence – the faster we recognise the person before us, the faster and more appropriately we are able to interact with them. However, the processing of faces is an incredibly complex task, and if impaired, cannot fully be remedied by other parts of the brain.
Professionals recount two mechanisms when it comes to recognising faces. One of the is called featural mechanism, which means the brain identifies different features of an object and puts together the bits and pieces to conclude the final image. Let’s say the brain sees four tires, a windshield, a plate number, and a steering wheel, so it recognises a car. In the case of a face the brain identifies, for instance, a pair of brown eyes, a long nose, bushy eyebrows, rosy cheeks, and a thin mouth, therefore, it creates the image of a face. The more detailed the identification is, the more likely the brain is to identify a familiar face as the stimuli are correlated against a reservoir of faces that are accumulated throughout a person’s life. Another approach is holistic processing, when the objects – or faces – are perceived as a whole rather than the sum of individual components. Damage to any part of the face recognitions mechanisms may result in the development of prosopagnosia.
Professionals recount two types of prosopagnosia: acquired and congenital.
Acquired face blindness is the rarer of the two. It develops due to a brain lesion, usually in adulthood, however, there are reports of teenagers with acquired prosopagnosia as well. Since the impairment is due to an external agent, it is likely that other areas are affected as well. Acquired face blindness may be accompanied by other visual impairments or difficulties, such as object agnosia, the inability to recognise objects, such as cars, fruits, or everyday items, the lack of emotional recognition or colour blindness, however, other acquired impairments are not as severe. The traumatic origin of the condition allows immediate recognition. People with acquired face blindness often report the feeling of loss of familiarity.
Congenital or hereditary face blindness means the condition is developed before the person is born. There are no underlying causative agents and it is not associated with other gross abnormalities. It is rather viewed as a generalised visual impairment. Individuals never develop normal face recognition, despite seemingly normal exposure to faces throughout their lifetime. Since there is no comparison with normal face processing skills, the condition can go undetected for a long time. It is also very likely to go unnoticed as the persons with inherited prosopagnosia have had a lifetime to develop compensatory strategies for recognition, such as hairlines, eyebrows, voices, and so on. People with congenital face blindness often report the feeling of loss of confidence in familiarity.
In the case of children, this division might not exclusively be applied.
As mentioned previously, face recognition allows the determination of identity – self or third parties -, permits the gathering of information on a bunch of matter, such as age, health, mood, etc. It is also a considerable aspect in sexual attraction and plays a vital role in the interpretation of speech via the observation of lip movements and the determination of gaze. The lack of ability to identify and recognise face often results in social and occupational deficits, as well as problems in everyday functions. Such difficulties might include the inability to recognise oneself, mistaking familiar faces when they have a change of hairstyle, or excessive reliance on verbal cues for identification. There are several written pieces and blogs dedicated to experiencing everyday life with prosopagnosia.
To briefly sum up, no, at least not yet. Research is continuously being carried out as a better understanding is essential. According to related literature, there are opportunities for drugs or surgical interventions, and there will not be in the near future. There are, however, several case studies of people improving their face recognition skills, some of which focuses on the holistic approach or the patterns of the eye movement.
We would strongly advise seeing a professional person, a therapist or neurologist, for assistance in the determination of prosopagnosia. According to literature, however, there is no standard criteria for diagnosing the condition of face blindness, but there is some consensus regarding it.