Skip to main content
PMC home page
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences logoLink to Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
. 1997 Jul 22;264(1384):1085–1092. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0150

Reduced autonomic responses to faces in Capgras delusion.

H D Ellis 1, A W Young 1, A H Quayle 1, K W De Pauw 1
PMCID: PMC1688551  PMID: 9263474

Abstract

People experiencing the Capgras delusion claim that others, usually those quite close emotionally, have been replaced by near-identical impostors. Ellis & Young suggested in 1990 that the Capgras delusion results from damage to a neurological system involved in orienting responses to seen faces based on their personal significance. This hypothesis predicts that people suffering the Capgras delusion will be hyporesponsive to familiar faces. We tested this prediction in five people with Capgras delusion. Comparison data were obtained from five middle-aged members of the general public, and a psychiatric control group of five patients taking similar anti-psychotic medication. Capgras delusion patients did not reveal autonomic discrimination between familiar and unfamiliar faces, but orienting responses to auditory tones were normal in magnitude and rate of initial habituation, showing that the hyporesponsiveness is circumscribed.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (268.8 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Alexander M. P., Stuss D. T., Benson D. F. Capgras syndrome: a reduplicative phenomenon. Neurology. 1979 Mar;29(3):334–339. doi: 10.1212/wnl.29.3.334. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Anderson D. N. The delusion of inanimate doubles. Implications for understanding the Capgras phenomenon. Br J Psychiatry. 1988 Nov;153:694–699. doi: 10.1192/bjp.153.5.694. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Bauer R. M. Autonomic recognition of names and faces in prosopagnosia: a neuropsychological application of the Guilty Knowledge Test. Neuropsychologia. 1984;22(4):457–469. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(84)90040-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bauer R. M. Visual hypoemotionality as a symptom of visual-limbic disconnection in man. Arch Neurol. 1982 Nov;39(11):702–708. doi: 10.1001/archneur.1982.00510230028009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Berson R. J. Capgras' syndrome. Am J Psychiatry. 1983 Aug;140(8):969–978. doi: 10.1176/ajp.140.8.969. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Christodoulou G. N. The syndrome of Capgras. Br J Psychiatry. 1977 Jun;130:556–564. doi: 10.1192/bjp.130.6.556. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Cutting J. Delusional misidentification and the role of the right hemisphere in the appreciation of identity. Br J Psychiatry Suppl. 1991 Nov;(14):70–75. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Damasio A. R., Tranel D., Damasio H. Face agnosia and the neural substrates of memory. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1990;13:89–109. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ne.13.030190.000513. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. De Haan E. H., Bauer R. M., Greve K. W. Behavioural and physiological evidence for covert face recognition in a prosopagnosic patient. Cortex. 1992 Mar;28(1):77–95. doi: 10.1016/s0010-9452(13)80167-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. De Pauw K. W., Szulecka T. K. Dangerous delusions. Violence and the misidentification syndromes. Br J Psychiatry. 1988 Jan;152:91–96. doi: 10.1192/bjp.152.1.91. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Ellis H. D., Whitley J., Luauté J. P. Delusional misidentification. The three original papers on the Capgras, Frégoli and intermetamorphosis delusions. (Classic Text No. 17) Hist Psychiatry. 1994 Mar;5(17 Pt 1):117–146. doi: 10.1177/0957154X9400501708. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Ellis H. D., Young A. W. Accounting for delusional misidentifications. Br J Psychiatry. 1990 Aug;157:239–248. doi: 10.1192/bjp.157.2.239. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Ellis H. D., de Pauw K. W., Christodoulou G. N., Papageorgiou L., Milne A. B., Joseph A. B. Responses to facial and non-facial stimuli presented tachistoscopically in either or both visual fields by patients with the Capgras delusion and paranoid schizophrenics. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1993 Feb;56(2):215–219. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.56.2.215. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Fleminger S., Burns A. The delusional misidentification syndromes in patients with and without evidence of organic cerebral disorder: a structured review of case reports. Biol Psychiatry. 1993 Jan 1;33(1):22–32. doi: 10.1016/0006-3223(93)90274-h. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Förstl H., Almeida O. P., Owen A. M., Burns A., Howard R. Psychiatric, neurological and medical aspects of misidentification syndromes: a review of 260 cases. Psychol Med. 1991 Nov;21(4):905–910. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700029895. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Joseph A. B. Focal central nervous system abnormalities in patients with misidentification syndromes. Bibl Psychiatr. 1986;(164):68–79. doi: 10.1159/000412319. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Kaney S., Bentall R. P. Persecutory delusions and attributional style. Br J Med Psychol. 1989 Jun;62(Pt 2):191–198. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1989.tb02826.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Lewis S. W. Brain imaging in a case of Capgras' syndrome. Br J Psychiatry. 1987 Jan;150:117–121. doi: 10.1192/bjp.150.1.117. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Lykken D. T., Venables P. H. Direct measurement of skin conductance: a proposal for standardization. Psychophysiology. 1971 Sep;8(5):656–672. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1971.tb00501.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Silva J. A., Leong G. B., Weinstock R., Klein R. L. Psychiatric factors associated with dangerous misidentification delusions. Bull Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 1995;23(1):53–61. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Staton R. D., Brumback R. A., Wilson H. Reduplicative paramnesia: a disconnection syndrome of memory. Cortex. 1982 Apr;18(1):23–35. doi: 10.1016/s0010-9452(82)80016-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Tranel D., Damasio A. R. Knowledge without awareness: an autonomic index of facial recognition by prosopagnosics. Science. 1985 Jun 21;228(4706):1453–1454. doi: 10.1126/science.4012303. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Tranel D., Damasio A. R. Non-conscious face recognition in patients with face agnosia. Behav Brain Res. 1988 Oct;30(3):235–249. doi: 10.1016/0166-4328(88)90166-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Tranel D., Fowles D. C., Damasio A. R. Electrodermal discrimination of familiar and unfamiliar faces: a methodology. Psychophysiology. 1985 Jul;22(4):403–408. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1985.tb01623.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Wallis G. Nature of the misidentified in the Capgras syndrome. Bibl Psychiatr. 1986;(164):40–48. doi: 10.1159/000412316. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Weinstein E. A., Burnham D. L. Reduplication and the syndrome of Capgras. Psychiatry. 1991 Feb;54(1):78–88. doi: 10.1080/00332747.1991.11024534. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Wright S., Young A. W., Hellawell D. J. Sequential Cotard and Capgras delusions. Br J Clin Psychol. 1993 Sep;32(Pt 3):345–349. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1993.tb01065.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Young A. W., Aggleton J. P., Hellawell D. J., Johnson M., Broks P., Hanley J. R. Face processing impairments after amygdalotomy. Brain. 1995 Feb;118(Pt 1):15–24. doi: 10.1093/brain/118.1.15. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  29. Young A. W., Leafhead K. M., Szulecka T. K. The Capgras and Cotard delusions. Psychopathology. 1994;27(3-5):226–231. doi: 10.1159/000284874. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  30. Young A. W., Reid I., Wright S., Hellawell D. J. Face-processing impairments and the Capgras delusion. Br J Psychiatry. 1993 May;162:695–698. doi: 10.1192/bjp.162.5.695. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  31. de Pauw K. W. Psychodynamic approaches to the Capgras delusion: a critical historical review. Psychopathology. 1994;27(3-5):154–160. doi: 10.1159/000284864. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences are provided here courtesy of The Royal Society

RESOURCES