Long-term impact of the diagnosis on quality of life, social skills, and person recognition strategies in congenital prosopagnosics: A cross-sectional study
- 1University of Bamberg, Germany
- 2Bamberg Graduate School of Affective and Cognitive Sciences (BaGrACS), Germany
Abstract
Persons with congenital prosopagnosia (cPA) find it hard to recognize familiar persons by their faces, learn new faces, and decide whether a face looks familiar. The deficit is common (prevalence of 2.5%), hereditary, and has no known cure. An increasing number of studies have tried to assess the scope of the deficit and the underlying functional brain alterations. Being diagnosed with a hereditary, lifelong condition can have negative effects that researchers should be aware of. Our study assessed the long-term impact of the diagnosis in 49 persons with cPA. We found that positive effects clearly predominate. Many participants developed new strategies for person recognition and improved their interpersonal skills. Their face recognition skills remain poor, as do their intuitive person recognition skills. Most importantly, a majority reported an improvement in the quality of their relationships and increased social support. The results are discussed, and recommendations for the diagnosis and recruitment process are presented.
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BibTeX
@article{gruter2026longterm,
title = {{Long-term impact of the diagnosis on quality of life, social skills, and person recognition strategies in congenital prosopagnosics: A cross-sectional study}},
author = {Martina Grüter and Claus-Christian Carbon and Thomas Grüter},
journal = {i-Perception},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1177/20416695261488290},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1177/20416695261488290},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Long-term impact of the diagnosis on quality of life, social skills, and person recognition strategies in congenital prosopagnosics: A cross-sectional study
AU - Martina Grüter
AU - Claus-Christian Carbon
AU - Thomas Grüter
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/19
JO - i-Perception
DO - 10.1177/20416695261488290
UR - https://doi.org/10.1177/20416695261488290
AB - Persons with congenital prosopagnosia (cPA) find it hard to recognize familiar persons by their faces, learn new faces, and decide whether a face looks familiar. The deficit is common (prevalence of 2.5%), hereditary, and has no known cure. An increasing number of studies have tried to assess the scope of the deficit and the underlying functional brain alterations. Being diagnosed with a hereditary, lifelong condition can have negative effects that researchers should be aware of. Our study assessed the long-term impact of the diagnosis in 49 persons with cPA. We found that positive effects clearly predominate. Many participants developed new strategies for person recognition and improved their interpersonal skills. Their face recognition skills remain poor, as do their intuitive person recognition skills. Most importantly, a majority reported an improvement in the quality of their relationships and increased social support. The results are discussed, and recommendations for the diagnosis and recruitment process are presented.
SN - 2041-6695
ER -