Neuropsychological Deficits of Facial Recognition

This thesis project examines neuropsychological disorders with regards to facial recognition. It looks at the research significance as well as the regions of the brain involved in facial recognition. It reviews what these regions look like when they are healthy, and what they look like when they are impaired and their resulting function. In addition, the project looks at autism and schizophrenia which have as one their symptoms facial recognition disorder. As a result, the project dives into what goes on these patients which results in impaired facial recognition. The project also looks at the own-race bias, and how that relates to facial recognition. Finally, the project proposes an experimental proposal to identify the neural centers involved in facial recognition in patients with Alzheimer’s, drawing upon previous research on the subject. An actual experiment was not conducted due to the pandemic, but there is a section of expected results in the event that the experiment is run. The expected results are that patients with Alzheimer’s should have deficits in the N170 component, the N400 component, the hippocampus and a smaller region of the cortex involved with processing faces compared to healthy controls.