De Haan E H, Young A, Newcombe F
Cortex. 1987 Jun;23(2):309-16. doi: 10.1016/s0010-9452(87)80041-2.
Since sustaining a severe closed head injury P.H. has been completely unable to recognise familiar faces, but remains able to identify written names. Despite his inability to recognise faces overtly, P.H. nevertheless shows a normal pattern of interference from simultaneously presented distractor faces in a politician vs nonpolitician name classification task. His reaction times for semantic (politician versus nonpolitician) classification of printed names are slowed by the presence of a face drawn from the incorrect semantic category. This interference is found even though P.H. performs at chance level when asked to overtly classify the faces used in the task. The finding demonstrates that prosopagnosic patients may covertly achieve relatively precise recognition of familiar faces and access to semantic information.
自遭受严重的闭合性颅脑损伤后，P.H. 已完全无法识别熟悉的面孔，但仍能够识别书写的名字。尽管P.H. 无法公然识别面孔，但在一项政治家与非政治家名字分类任务中，他对同时呈现的干扰面孔仍表现出正常的干扰模式。当存在来自错误语义类别的面孔时，他对印刷名字进行语义（政治家与非政治家）分类的反应时间会减慢。即使要求P.H. 公然对面孔进行分类时其表现处于随机水平，这种干扰依然存在。这一发现表明，面孔失认症患者可能在暗中实现对熟悉面孔的相对精确识别并获取语义信息。
