Visual Processing in Developmental Prosopagnosia and Developmental Dyslexia

Project title

Visual Processing in Developmental Prosopagnosia and Developmental Dyslexia

Project manager

Christina D. Kühn

Project description

Goal:
The main purpose of this project is to further our knowledge of the visual processing, primarily face recognition and word recognition.

Background:
A small part of the population has developmental prosopagnosia and suffers from severe difficulties in face recognition. Limited is known about cognitive mechanisms in developmental prosopagnosia. Comparably more is known about developmental dyslexia, but with a primary focus on phonological awareness and less, or no focus, on their visual perception.

Methods:
Data are primarily collected through computer based psychological experiments. Designs within the project varies (e.g. within in subject design, case series) depending on the research questions, thus, different, appropriate statistical methods are used for analysis in accordance to research design and data collection.

Focus:
The focus of this project is to gain a better understanding of face recognition and word recognition. To this end, face recognition and word recognition will be investigated in neurotypical developed children and in developmental dyslexia and developmental prosopagnosia.

Perspective:
The project is part of a larger research project entitled: "On the relations between face, word and object recognition: A new and developmental perspective". The general purpose of this project is to further our knowledge of the visual processing in developmental dyslexia and developmental prosopagnosia and possible phenotypes within these two groups.

Start date and expected end date

01.10.2015 - 18.06.2020

Main supervisor

Professor WSR Christian Gerlach, Department of Psychology, SDU

Co-supervisors

Professor WSR Randi Starrfelt, Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen

The project is carried out under

BRIDGE, Brain Research - Inter-Disciplinary Guided Excellence Research Group

Collaborators

Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen

Funding

The project has been funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research and the Faculty of Health Sciences at SDU

Keywords

face recognition, word recognition, reading, developmental prosopagnosia, face blindness, developmental dyslexia, visual processing, experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology