Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is a severe impairment of visual face recognition in the absence of any apparent brain damage. The factors responsible for DP have not yet been fully identified. This article provides a selective review of recent studies investigating cognitive and neural processes that may contribute to the face recognition deficits in DP, focusing primarily on event-related brain potential (ERP) measures of face perception and recognition. Studies that measured the face-sensitive N170 component as a marker of perceptual face processing have shown that the perceptual discrimination between faces and non-face objects is intact in DP. Other N170 studies suggest that faces are not represented in the typical fashion in DP. Individuals with DP appear to have specific difficulties in processing spatial and contrast deviations from canonical upright visual–perceptual face templates. The rapid detection of emotional facial expressions appears to be unaffected in DP. ERP studies of the activation of visual memory for individual faces and of the explicit identification of particular individuals have revealed differences between DPs and controls in the timing of these processes and in the links between visual face memory and explicit face recognition. These observations suggest that the speed and efficiency of information propagation through the cortical face network is altered in DP. The nature of the perceptual impairments in DP suggests that atypical visual experience with the eye region of faces over development may be an important contributing factor to DP.

People with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) show severe face-recognition deficits that typically emerge during childhood without history of neurological damage. We review findings from recent event-related brain potential (ERP) studies of face perception and face recognition in DP. The generic face-sensitivity of the N170 component is present in most DPs, suggesting rapid category-selective streaming of facial information. In contrast, DPs show atypical N170 face inversion effects, indicative of impaired structural encoding, specifically for upright faces. In line with neurodevelopmental accounts of DP, these effects are similar to those observed for other developmental disorders, as well as for younger children and older adults. Identity-sensitive ERP components (N250, P600f) triggered during successful face recognition are similar for DPs and control participants, indicating that the same mechanisms are active in both groups. The presence of covert face-recognition effects for the N250 component suggests that visual face memory and semantic memory can become disconnected in some individuals with DP. The implications of these results for neuropsychological and neurodevelopmental perspectives on DP are discussed.