Towler John R, Jackson Margaret C, Tree Jeremy J
School of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Old Aberdeen, UK.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2024 Oct-Dec;41(7-8):300-321. doi: 10.1080/02643294.2025.2498154. Epub 2025 May 5.
We investigated visual working memory (VWM) for faces and two novel non-face pattern types (Blobs and Mondrians) in individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) and age-matched controls. Participants completed both simultaneous and sequential encoding tasks, judging whether a probe item matched one shown at encoding. DPs showed a consistent face disadvantage across both encoding types, while controls showed a face advantage, but only during simultaneous encoding. Compared to controls, DPs had impaired face VWM in both tasks but performed equivalently for abstract shapes and patterns. Face VWM impairments in DP were not exacerbated by increased memory load or updating demands, suggesting these deficits stem from face perception difficulties that affect encoding rather than general VWM mechanisms. Our group-based analyses were supplemented by individual case statistics. Overall, our findings indicate that DPs do not exhibit general VWM deficits, but rather specific difficulties with face processing across formats.
我们研究了发育性面孔失认症（DP）患者和年龄匹配的对照组对面孔以及两种新型非面孔图案类型（斑点图和蒙德里安抽象画）的视觉工作记忆（VWM）。参与者完成了同时性和序列性编码任务，判断一个探测项目是否与编码时呈现的项目匹配。DP患者在两种编码类型中均表现出一致的面孔劣势，而对照组则表现出面孔优势，但仅在同时性编码期间。与对照组相比，DP患者在两项任务中面孔VWM均受损，但在抽象形状和图案方面表现相当。DP患者的面孔VWM损伤不会因记忆负荷增加或更新需求而加剧，这表明这些缺陷源于影响编码的面孔感知困难，而非一般的VWM机制。我们基于组的分析由个体病例统计数据补充。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，DP患者并未表现出一般的VWM缺陷，而是在跨格式的面孔加工方面存在特定困难。
