Dr S's case showed impairment in which aspect of face recognition?

• A. Maintaining the face recognition units over time and/or using them to activate person identity information
• B. Structural encoding of faces
• C. Initial registration of face recognition units
• D. None of the above

Answer: (A)

The question tests understanding of the stages of face recognition and where a deficit can occur. In the standard model, after a face is structurally encoded, it activates a stored representation in the face recognition units. These units must be kept stable over time and they must effectively activate the person identity information to retrieve who the person is (including name and biographical details). If a case shows impairment at this stage, the person may struggle to recognize familiar faces even though the face can be perceived and described, because the stored representations aren’t maintained properly or they fail to trigger the identity information. This explains why the deficit is described as affecting maintaining the face recognition units over time and/or using them to activate person identity information. Problems at structural encoding would affect basic perception of the face itself, while problems at initial registration would mean the face never enters the recognition stores. Therefore, the best answer points to the impairment at the level of maintaining FRUs and activating PINs.