FALSE RECOGNITION OF UNFAMILIAR FACES FOLLOWING RIGHT-HEMISPHERE DAMAGE - NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL AND ANATOMICAL OBSERVATIONS

False recognition of unfamiliar faces was investigated in patients wit h focal right hemisphere damage (RHD) in order to define the neuropsyc hological and anatomical correlates of the recognition impairment and examine its relationship to prosopagnosia. Findings are discussed with in the framework of the Bruce and Young (1986) model of face processin g. Although false recognition and prosopagnosia were both present in s ome RHD patients, the two types of face recognition impairments were d issociable in others. Processing deficits in subjects with both false recognition and prosopagnosia were associated with posterior right hem isphere lesion sites and included severe face perception impairment an d partial damage to face recognition units (FRUs). Prosopagnosia witho ut false recognition was seen following near complete destruction of F RUs, but this type of dissociation could also occur when FRUs become d isconnected. The opposite dissociation, false recognition without pros opagnosial was observed following right prefrontal damage. We propose that false recognition in frontal patients results from the breakdown of strategic decision making and monitoring functions critical for det ermining whether a face is indeed that of a familiar person or whether there is merely a resemblance to a known individual. False recognitio n following prefrontal damage may also be related to confabulation, in which case familiarity or even specific identity are erroneously attr ibuted to facial stimuli without the activation of an underlying memor y representation.