肖雅琪

Do you find it difficult to remember faces？ If so， you may have a form ofprosopagnosia1—or “face blindness”. This includes the inability2 to recognizefaces youve seen before， even those of friends or family.

你是否覺得記住面孔很難呢？如果是這樣，你可能患有一種形式的面孔失認癥———或者“臉盲癥”。癥狀包括無法認出你之前見過的面孔，甚至是朋友或家人的面孔。

It was believed that face blindness affected just over 2% of people in the worldbefore. But it may be more common than that， according to new research.

之前，人們認為世界上只有2%的人患有臉盲癥。但是根據(jù)新的研究，它可能比想象中的更常見。

Researchers asked over 3，100 adult participants3 in the US questions abouttheir experiences recognizing faces in daily life. Then， they gave them two tests thatlooked at their ability to learn new faces.

研究人員詢問了超過3100 名美國成年受試者關(guān)于他們在日常生活中識別人臉經(jīng)歷的問題。然后，他們對受試者進行了兩個測試，看看他們識記新面孔的能力。

The study found that 31 of theparticipants had major4 prosopagnosia，while 72 had a milder5 form—so about 3%in total. They also found no clear dividebetween people with a good or bad ability torecognize faces—and people with majorprosopagnosia did not always score theworst on the tests. The results insteadshowed more possibility.

研究發(fā)現(xiàn)有31 名受試者患有嚴重的面孔失認癥，而72 名受試者患有較輕的面孔失認癥———所以他們總共約占 3%。他們還發(fā)現(xiàn)，在識別面孔的能力上，面孔識別能力強弱之間沒有明顯的分野———而且有嚴重面孔失認癥的人在測試中的得分并不總是最差的。結(jié)果反而顯示了更多的可能性。

The researcher said that many people may be told they dont haveprosopagnosia because very strict standards are used to diagnose6 it. Less strictstandards， he said， could help people understand more about the prosopagnosia，including its milder forms， and how to weaken its negative influences. Theresearchers said different tests should be used for diagnosing prosopagnosia： one formajor forms and another for milder forms.

研究人員說，許多人可能被告知他們并未患上面孔失認癥，這是因為診斷時使用了非常嚴格的標準。他說，不那么嚴格的標準可以幫助人們更多地了解面孔失認癥，包括其較輕的形式，以及如何削弱其負面影響。研究人員說應該使用不同的測試來診斷面孔失認癥：一種用于診斷嚴重的，另一種用于診斷較輕的。

Notes

1. prosopagnosia 面孔失認癥

2. inability 無能；無力；不能

3. participant 參加者；參與者

4. major 嚴重的

5. mild 不嚴重的；輕微的

6. diagnose 診斷；病癥