Impaired discrimination of familiar from unfamiliar faces

We report investigations of the face processing abilities of J.T., a man who had suffered a right hemisphere stroke. J.T. showed a marked problem in discriminating between familiar and unfamiliar faces, with no corresponding problem in discriminating familiar from unfamiliar names. The problem with faces was still found 2 years after the stroke, but had resolved at long-term follow-up (9 years post stroke). When given unlimited time to respond, J.T. did not show any problem in recognising familiar faces, but tended to think that he recognised unfamiliar faces. When under time pressure, however, J.T. also failed to recognise a number of familiar faces which he could readily identify when the time pressure was removed. J.T.'s ability to remember a face and to think of other people who might be similar in appearance was affected by whether or not the face seemed familiar or unfamiliar to him. Hence, whatever underlay the spurious sense of familiarity was sufficient to produce real differences between the way in which genuinely unfamiliar and spuriously familiar faces were seen, leading us to suggest that his impaired discrimination of unfamiliar from familiar faces reflected a malfunction of face recognition units.