Fiset Daniel, Blais Caroline, Royer Jessica, Richoz Anne-Raphaëlle, Dugas Gabrielle, Caldara Roberto
Département de Psychoéducation et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Canada.
Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition, Montréal, Canada.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2017 Aug 1;12(8):1334-1341. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsx068.
Acquired prosopagnosia is characterized by a deficit in face recognition due to diverse brain lesions, but interestingly most prosopagnosic patients suffering from posterior lesions use the mouth instead of the eyes for face identification. Whether this bias is present for the recognition of facial expressions of emotion has not yet been addressed. We tested PS, a pure case of acquired prosopagnosia with bilateral occipitotemporal lesions anatomically sparing the regions dedicated for facial expression recognition. PS used mostly the mouth to recognize facial expressions even when the eye area was the most diagnostic. Moreover, PS directed most of her fixations towards the mouth. Her impairment was still largely present when she was instructed to look at the eyes, or when she was forced to look at them. Control participants showed a performance comparable to PS when only the lower part of the face was available. These observations suggest that the deficits observed in PS with static images are not solely attentional, but are rooted at the level of facial information use. This study corroborates neuroimaging findings suggesting that the Occipital Face Area might play a critical role in extracting facial features that are integrated for both face identification and facial expression recognition in static images.
获得性面孔失认症的特征是由于各种脑损伤导致面部识别能力缺陷，但有趣的是，大多数患有后部损伤的面孔失认症患者在识别面孔时使用嘴巴而非眼睛。对于情绪面部表情的识别是否存在这种偏向尚未得到研究。我们测试了PS，她是一名双侧枕颞叶损伤的获得性面孔失认症的典型病例，其损伤在解剖学上未累及负责面部表情识别的区域。即使眼部区域是最具诊断性的，PS在识别面部表情时大多使用嘴巴。此外，PS的大部分注视点都集中在嘴巴上。当她被指示看向眼睛时，或者当她被迫看向眼睛时，她的损伤仍然很大程度上存在。当仅提供面部下半部分时，对照组参与者的表现与PS相当。这些观察结果表明，PS在静态图像中观察到的缺陷不仅仅是注意力方面的，而是源于面部信息使用的层面。这项研究证实了神经影像学的发现，即枕叶面孔区可能在提取用于静态图像中面孔识别和面部表情识别的整合面部特征方面发挥关键作用。
