Specific Deficits in Facial Recognition in Children Aged 7-14 Years With Developmental Prosopagnosia

Recent findings indicate that adults with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) retain the ability to recognize objects despite having severe facial recognition deficits, suggesting that facial recognition deficits in these individuals are specific. However, the existence of face-specific deficits in children with DP remains unclear. The present study aimed to examine whether face-specific deficits exist in children with DP.

In Experiment 1, a learning recognition paradigm was adopted to investigate the specificity of facial recognition deficits in 7-14-year-old children. The object and facial recognition scores were compared between the DP and control groups. In Experiment 2, animal faces were included to further explore whether the specific deficit is unique to human faces or extends to animal faces.

In Experiment 1, compared with the control group, the DP group presented significantly lower facial recognition scores, whereas the object recognition scores did not significantly differ. In Experiment 2, the DP group had significantly lower human and animal facial recognition scores compared with the control group, but no significant differences in the object recognition scores were observed.

This study confirms that face-specific deficits exist in children with DP and that such deficits exist for both human and animal faces.