EXPRESS: Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia tend to focus more evenly on facial features.

The causes of developmental prosopagnosia (DP) have long been a focus of research; however, the cause has not been conclusively identified. This study uses behavioral and eye movement techniques to explore the causes of DP by comparing differences in fixation patterns during face recognition between the DP and control groups. A mixed experimental design of 2 (group: control, DP) x 3 (area of interest (AOI): eyes, nose, mouth) was adopted, dividing faces into 3 AOIs: eyes, nose, and mouth. The behavioral results showed that the face recognition scores were lower in the DP group than in the control group. The eye movement results showed that the duration and number of eye and nose fixations were greater than those on the mouth in the control group; however, the duration and number of fixations on the eyes, nose, and mouth did not differ in the DP group. The results confirmed that the control group focused more on the eye and nose when recognizing faces, while the DP group adopted a more even browsing pattern to focus on various facial features.