Self-ratings of face recognition ability are influenced by gender but not prosopagnosia severity

Growing awareness of developmental prosopagnosia has resulted in large numbers of people self-referring for prosopagnosia screening. Objective assessment depends heavily on available resources; thus, some researchers use self-ratings of face recognition ability to reduce candidate lists. However, our own metacognitive awareness of our face recognition skills has been much debated, and there is mixed evidence on the reliability of self-report measures. Nevertheless, some behavioral trait questionnaires have proved more useful, although it remains unclear whether these instruments can tap prosopagnosia severity or whether responses are influenced by participant gender (as in other developmental disorders). We investigated these issues in 47 adults with developmental prosopagnosia. No relationship was observed between questionnaire scores and prosopagnosia severity, but males were found to underreport prosopagnosia symptoms relative to females. Thus, we recommend caution in the interpretation of low scores on self-report questionnaires and suggest that separate norms are developed for male and female participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).