ABSTRACT

Most findings on prosopagnosia to date suggest preserved voice recognition in prosopagnosia (except in cases with bilateral lesions). Here we report a follow-up examination on M.T., suffering from acquired prosopagnosia following a large unilateral right-hemispheric lesion in frontal, parietal, and anterior temporal areas excluding core ventral occipitotemporal face areas. Twenty-three years after initial testing we reassessed face and object recognition skills [Henke, K., Schweinberger, S. R., Grigo, A., Klos, T., & Sommer, W. (1998). Specificity of face recognition: Recognition of exemplars of non-face objects in prosopagnosia. Cortex, 34(2), 289–296]; [Schweinberger, S. R., Klos, T., & Sommer, W. (1995). Covert face recognition in prosopagnosia – A dissociable function? Cortex, 31(3), 517–529] and additionally studied voice recognition. Confirming the persistence of deficits, M.T. exhibited substantial impairments in famous face recognition and memory for learned faces, but preserved face matching and object recognition skills. Critically, he showed substantially impaired voice recognition skills. These findings are congruent with the ideas that (i) prosopagnosia after right anterior temporal lesions can persist over long periods > 20 years, and that (ii) such lesions can be associated with both facial and vocal deficits in person recognition.

摘要

迄今为止，大多数关于面容失认症的研究结果表明，面容失认症患者的语音识别功能得以保留（双侧病变除外）。在这里，我们报告了对 MT 的后续检查，在额叶、顶叶和前颞区（不包括核心腹侧枕颞面部区域）发生大的单侧右半球病变后，患有获得性面容失认症。初始测试 23 年后，我们重新评估了面部和物体识别技能 [Henke, K., Schweinberger, SR, Grigo, A., Klos, T., & Sommer, W. (1998)。人脸识别的特异性：面容失认症中非人脸物体样本的识别。皮质, 34 (2), 289–296]; [Schweinberger, SR, Klos, T., & Sommer, W. (1995)。面容失认症中的隐蔽人脸识别——一种可分离的功能？Cortex , 31 (3), 517–529] 并另外研究了语音识别。确认缺陷的持续存在，MT 在著名的面部识别和学习面孔的记忆方面表现出明显的损伤，但保留了面部匹配和物体识别技能。至关重要的是，他表现出严重受损的语音识别能力。这些发现与以下观点一致：(i) 右前颞叶损伤后的面容失认症可以持续超过 20 年，并且 (ii) 这种损伤可能与面部和声音识别缺陷有关。