Prosopagnosia Development What is normal? Commentary

Joachim Bodamer anatomy

Prosopagnosia

• Damage the fusiform gyrus area of your brain,
• or maybe you’re born that way,
• and you would find it difficult or impossible
• to recognize a face, even your own.
• You couldn’t tell whether two faces
• are the same or different.
• Your memories about people would be disordered
• and you’d find socializing difficult.
• You may have this condition and not know it.
• How is anyone to say how others do it?
• You would recognize voices, smells, and hairstyles,
• but not faces, even your mother’s.

Development

• Normal babies can mimic facial expressions
• and at seven months can interpret facial expressions.
• Normal five-year-olds can recognize faces
• although adults do it more efficiently.
• Ducklings follow the first thing they lay their eyes on
• and this has nothing to do with facial recognition.
• Nevertheless, the exception proves the rule;
• the notion that we aren’t guided by instincts is bogus.

What is normal?

• Normal for one person
• isn’t normal for another.
• Differences between individuals
• are greater than between groups.
• Normal is what you’re used to,
• an abstract and relative concept.
• Let’s not fool ourselves
• by thinking anyone is normal.