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ScienceBoy -> RE: Okay...this is hugely off anyone's radar... (11/23/2006 6:25:43 AM)
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There's an article on just this subject in the most recent New Scientist in fact.
I did pass over the disorder in psychopathology - it is (like a lot of the aphasia type conditions) very interesting, very strange, and very hard to work out why it happens. The process is fiendishly complex, and difficult to imitate, let alone understand in toto.
If you're interested in this, try Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Which is a compilation of case studies (you probably know who Sacks is, or at least saw Robin Williams playing him in Awakenings), of the more extraordinary type. Dr. Ramachamdran (I've almost certainly got his name partially wrong), is also very interesting in this general area - interesting stuff about phantom limbs, as well as dead hand type syndrome (where a part of the body is identiofied as belonging to somebody else, or being dead). [He also suggests shizophrenics may be able to tickle themselves]
One person in the New Scientist article uses hair styles as cues to identity, and described a colleague putting her hair into a ponytail and 'vanishing' - "her identity dissolved in front of me. It was very disconcerting."
Extra oddness in that most people with the condition may not realise that they should be able to do this.
Facial recognition is fascinating neurological mojo-magic [8D]
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