Abstract
Through examining what is known of the etiology of Capgras Syndrome and its similarities and differences from other facial recognition disorders, this paper shows how a disorder such as Capgras can provide interesting insight into the functioning of human memory.

From the Paper
"Capgras Syndrome is a rare disorder in which an individual suffers from delusions that one, or a few highly familiar people have been replaced by (Edelstyn & Oyebode, 1999). While the patient is capable of acknowledging that the "impostor" looks identical to the "missing person," they lack any sense of emotional attachment and therefore insist that the person is psychologically different, or absent. The disorder often occurs in conjunction with paranoid schizophrenia, but 25 to 40% of the cases are associated with organic disorders such as dementia, head trauma, epilepsy or cerebrovascular disease (Edelstyn & Oyebode, 1999).Neuropsychologists have linked Capgras to damage to the right hemisphere, specifically the frontal and temporal lobes, but damage often exists bilaterally (Edelstyn & Oyebode, 1999). The specific causation of Capgras Syndrome is not known. Similar brain damage does not always result in Capgras Syndrome, and thus cognitive psychologists argue that cognition plays a role in creating Capgras Syndrome. Structural damage to the brain creates some gap in a person's ability to recognize faces, but it is cognition that is responsible for a patient filling in this gap with the delusion that impostors have replaced familiar acquaintances and loved ones (Edelstyn & Oyebode, 1999). Cognitive psychologists use this to explain why some patients with identical brain damage fail to develop Capgras Syndrome while others do (Edelstyn & Oyebode, 1999). However, despite their theory, it is difficult to test empirically and thus the majority of the literature focuses on neuropsychological explanations for Capgras Syndrome."

Tags:alzheirmer, cognition, cognitive, disorders, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, prosopagnosia, psychopathology