Impairments for faces but not for abstract shapes in developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence from visual working memory tasks.

Abstract

We investigated visual working memory (VWM) for faces and two novel non-face pattern types (Blobs and Mondrians) in individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) and age-matched controls. Participants completed both simultaneous and sequential encoding tasks, judging whether a probe item matched one shown at encoding. DPs showed a consistent face disadvantage across both encoding types, while controls showed a face advantage, but only during simultaneous encoding. Compared to controls, DPs had impaired face VWM in both tasks but performed equivalently for abstract shapes and patterns. Face VWM impairments in DP were not exacerbated by increased memory load or updating demands, suggesting these deficits stem from face perception difficulties that affect encoding rather than general VWM mechanisms. Our group-based analyses were supplemented by individual case statistics. Overall, our findings indicate that DPs do not exhibit general VWM deficits, but rather specific difficulties with face processing across formats.