Prosopagnosia: Seeing the World through Fog-Colored Glasses :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Prosopagnosia Seeing the sphere through Fog-Colored Glasses With impressive consistency, the visual system, along with each incident component that in sum total constitutes a person, develops without error. Patterns of input trespass on complex layers of cells, with the resulting neural interpretation allowing us to negotiate the spacial world around us such that we may avoid cause harm to ourselves or to others. Various devices and techniques pay off been devised to allow those who argon non equipped with a similarly functioning visual system to pass natural selections discerning grasp. but, various gradations of dysfunction exist between perfective aspect and no vision, which complicate the life of the person suffering from these rowdyisms no less. The disorder prosopagnosia, in particular, otherwise known as showcase blindness, causes a disqualifying deficit in a persons ability to recognize faces (1, 2, 3, 6, 7). It is a moderately ill understood and deceiving phenom enon. Those individuals suffering from prosopagnosia are able to see suddenly well, to the extent that their perception of visual stimuli is not impaired. However, when presented with a persons face, they are absolutely unable to recall having seen that face or having interacted with the person attached to it. any(prenominal) people would make the distinction between prosopagnosia and facial agnosia (4, 8), with the former applying just now to familiar faces while the latter applies more generally to prevent the recognition of any faces. While this might suggest memory impairment as a possible cause, certainty for perceptual deficits has been consistent (4), thereby refuting the theory that these individuals are simply not able to remember people they have encountered. Specifically, the locus of damage that results in prosopagnosia appears to be the medial occipitotemporal cortex (4), though the disorder may be congenital or acquired (2). Lesions in this moderately posterior a nd deeply embedded region of the brain, suggested by some researchers to be bilateral in the instance of this disorder, would be consistent with the presented deficits in perception. However there are certain elements of the research and the disorder which seem counterintuitive. For instance, that these face blind individuals only cite difficulty in recognizing familiar faces suggests that the difficulty may be more than just perceptual. Furthermore, there is separate evidence suggesting that visual processing occurs on a unilateral level (4), and that stimuli are perceived contralaterally. This orientation does not preclude a bilateral lesioning beingness at the root of prosopagnosia, however it does offer some complicating factors.