Man who confuses his wife with the hat

2008/12/07 Álvarez Busca, Lucía - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Medikuntza

Prosopagnosia is a selective disruption of the perception of faces. That is, you see your own or others' faces, but they are not known, so you lose the ability to identify these people through your face.

Previously known, the first case was XX. It was documented in the mid-20th century during World War II. The doctors saw how a German soldier, after a head injury, lost the ability to identify faces. Therefore, mental trauma was initially identified as the cause of prosopagnosis. As they advance in research, they have seen that there are people suffering from the disease since birth.

Those who suffer this alteration remember the people around them; they are able to remember the color, smell, voice, etc. of her hair and skin. But if only the face is shown they do not identify the person, even if they are parents, siblings or partners. That is, other characteristics of this person can be remembered, but they cannot see or understand their face. A very small part of the population suffers from this disorder (2.5%), so researchers and laboratories who were very late in their research. According to them, prosopagnosia may be due to a failure in the temporal lobe.

Internet impact

The Internet gave an unexpected boost to prosopagnosis research. He told on the net the problem a man suffered, hoping that someone would give him some explanation. Immediately, the Internet became the meeting point between experts and more patients, and soon achieved daily and specialized press attention.

Good news for patients has been the interest of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in researching prosopagnosia. Researchers at the institute believe that research into the syndrome will be important in advancing the field of artificial intelligence, so that machines have the ability to identify people.

Capgras Syndrome

Prosopagnosis research has given the first signs of another syndrome: People with Capgras syndrome are convinced that a person in their environment, such as a couple, parents, or a child, has been replaced by a scammer and they see that that person is not the one who really says.

The first case was documented by the French psychiatrists Capgras and Reboul-Lachaux in 1923, and the first is due to his name, although they called him L’ ilcluon des sosies — the imagination of the substitutes. Those investigators documented the case of a woman who claimed that her husband and other relatives were deceived and took the positions of the royals.

Recently, Canadian psychiatrists Ian and Joel Gold have identified another syndrome that goes one step beyond Capgras syndrome: The Truman Show Syndrome. These patients believe that all people around them are part of a show and that everyone is the protagonist. The same thing happened to Jim Carrey in the film of the same name.

Published in 7k