Dalrymple Kirsten A, Duchaine Brad
Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, USA.
Dev Sci. 2016 May;19(3):440-51. doi: 10.1111/desc.12311. Epub 2015 May 10.
Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is defined by severe face recognition difficulties due to the failure to develop the visual mechanisms for processing faces. The two-process theory of face recognition (Morton & Johnson, 1991) implies that DP could result from a failure of an innate face detection system; this failure could prevent an individual from then tuning higher-level processes for face recognition (Johnson, 2005). Work with adults indicates that some individuals with DP have normal face detection whereas others are impaired. However, face detection has not been addressed in children with DP, even though their results may be especially informative because they have had less opportunity to develop strategies that could mask detection deficits. We tested the face detection abilities of seven children with DP. Four were impaired at face detection to some degree (i.e. abnormally slow, or failed to find faces) while the remaining three children had normal face detection. Hence, the cases with impaired detection are consistent with the two-process account suggesting that DP could result from a failure of face detection. However, the cases with normal detection implicate a higher-level origin. The dissociation between normal face detection and impaired identity perception also indicates that these abilities depend on different neurocognitive processes.
发育性面孔失认症（DP）的定义是，由于未能发育出处理面孔的视觉机制而导致严重的面孔识别困难。面孔识别的双过程理论（莫顿和约翰逊，1991）表明，DP可能是由于先天面孔检测系统失灵所致；这种失灵可能会阻止个体随后调整用于面孔识别的更高层次的过程（约翰逊，2005）。对成年人的研究表明，一些患有DP的个体具有正常的面孔检测能力，而另一些则存在缺陷。然而，DP儿童的面孔检测问题尚未得到解决，尽管他们的结果可能特别有参考价值，因为他们没有太多机会发展出可以掩盖检测缺陷的策略。我们测试了7名DP儿童的面孔检测能力。其中4名在某种程度上面孔检测存在缺陷（即速度异常缓慢，或未能找到面孔），而其余3名儿童的面孔检测正常。因此，检测存在缺陷的案例与双过程理论相符，表明DP可能是由于面孔检测失灵所致。然而，检测正常的案例则暗示了更高层次的原因。正常的面孔检测与受损的身份感知之间的分离也表明，这些能力依赖于不同的神经认知过程。
