Psychology Goes To The Movies: The Face In The Crowd

Psychology Goes to the Movies -The Face in the Crowd
The face in the crowd is a movie featuring a woman, Anna Marchant after surviving an attack by women serial killer. Anna fell over the bridge and hit her head over the railings as she was trying to escape from the killer after witnessing him commit a murder. This accident left Anna with a condition known as prosopagnosia, a brain disorder commonly describes as face blindness. This injury prevents Anna from recognizing faces, including the face of her family and friend, she couldn’t even recognize her own face, not to talk of differentiating between a familiar of a friend from that of a stranger face.
The elements of cognitive psychology depicted in the face in the crowd are memory, perception and its effect on mental function and decision making, since the movie follows how Anna copes by focusing on the changes she has to make to accommodate the new condition. The movie has its flaw and its merit, as it depicts some correct information about the cognitive element pertaining to prosopagnosia but the movie lost some credibility when it start to use the fictitious term and condition to make the movie more interesting.
A selective deficit in the
visual learning and recognition of faces is known as prosopagnosia, which can be found both in acquired and congenital form. Prosopagnosia is a form of visual agnosia, which is an impairment of higher visual process for recognition. Prosopagnosia was said to be caused by a lesion on the temporal lobe of the brain, according to the neurologist, which is the region of brain that controls auditory function, how language is perceived and understand and the ability to remember information, not just for facial recognition as illustrated in the movie. The occipital lobe of the brain is responsible for processing visual information from the eyes, this implies that the temporal lobe is not the only part of the brain affected when an individual suffers from prosopagnosia as indicated in the movie; both the occipital lobe and temporal lobe are affected.
Other cases in the movie that contrasted what the neurologist characterized as a symptom or sign of prosopagnosia. In one of the scene Anna was seen scrubbing furiously at her face because she was unable to identify the person she sees in the mirror at herself. This depiction is incorrect people diagnosed with prosopagnosia are unable to distinguish between faces, not even their own faces, Anna was able to tell that the face she sees in the mirror does not belong to her is incorrect because she can recognize anyone.
The majority of people with prosopagnosia were able to characterize and identify people by using distinctive features, such as hairstyle, ear shape, and style of dressing to identify people.
The subject Anna was able to use such technique to identify people, such as using tie pattern to identify Bryce, but the movie became fictional and incorrect when it suggested that Anna can recognize the detective because of his beard. People with prosopagnosia sees a beard, but they are unable to process and file that particular face with a name as Anna was able to do with the detective. Failure to recognize faces by prosopagnosia patient as being likened to taking a picture without storing, so you have no access to it later so they don’t have any recollection of that
face.
The movie ended with Anna at the market embracing a little girl, identified as her daughter and says she can recognize her, “just when I thought I'd lost everything, I found a face. One face, which I can always read. Love.” This quote is very inaccurate because as seen in the video in class and cbs news report were real people suffering from prosopagnosia were interview none of they were able to recognize the people they love not their mother, child or spouse because they have no access the this info because the part of the brain needed for processing information is damaged. Overall the movie was good as it actually show how prosopagnosia can influence people day to day life and survival but it would have been better without the exaggeration of frictional symptoms.