The Word of the Day comes again from THE RETURNS by Philip Salom.
PROSOPAGNOSIA
NOUN psychiatry
a neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people.
ORIGIN 1950s: modern Latin, from Greekprosōpon‘face’ + agnōsia‘ignorance’.
What causes prosopagnosia?
There are 2 types of prosopagnosia:
developmental prosopagnosia – where a person has prosopagnosia without having brain damage
acquired prosopagnosia – where a person develops prosopagnosia after brain damage, often following a stroke or head injury
In the past, most cases of prosopagnosia were thought to occur after a brain injury (acquired prosopagnosia).
But research has found that many more people have prosopagnosia without having brain damage (developmental prosopagnosia) than was first thought.