A familial factor in the development of face recognition deficits

The face is probably the single most important visual object. It is the mai n cue for identifying familiar people and crucial in nonverbal communicatio n. Face recognition can be demonstrated in newborn babies, suggesting that face recognition is to some degree 'hard-wired' in the brain. Also, neurolo gical disease can selectively disrupt the ability to recognize faces. Apart from acquired face recognition deficits, developmental cases have been rep orted. This study presents a family in which the father and two of his daug hters are very poor at recognizing faces, demonstrating for the first time a familial factor in developmental face recognition deficit.