Glossary / Lexicon

Prosopagnosia refers to a specific inability or impaired ability to recognize or identify faces, even very familiar ones, but with intact recognition of other objects. It is the special case of inability to recognize people by their faces. It is a form of Visual Agnosia in which the person can not recognize faces. Prosopagnosia is an impaired ability to recognize or identify faces caused by brain damaged. Prosopagnostic patients cannot recognize familiar faces, which can even extend to their own faces in the mirror. However, these patients have generally few problems in recognizing other familiar objects. Face recognition is the most common way we identify people, so the inability to recognize faces is a problem.