Prosopagnosia: a face-specific disorder.

A follow-up study of a patient, WJ with a very severe prosopagnosia is reported. After a stroke he became a farmer and acquired a flock of sheep. He learn to recognize and name many of his sheep, and his performance on tests of recognition memory and paired-associate learning for sheep was significantly better than on comparable tests using human face stimuli. It is concluded that in some instances prosopagnosia can be a face-specific disorder.