There are antisocial people who avoid the company of others, and there are antisocial people who see others as terrifying demons. It's a rare condition called prosopometamorphosis, or PMO, which alters the perception of faces, distorting the color, shape, size and position of facial features.
The prestigious medical journal The Lancet published a study on the strange disorder, in which special illustrations help to understand what those who suffer from it face. PMO is not a mental illness, but its symptoms can easily be confused with schizophrenia, so there is a high probability that someone will be misdiagnosed and prescribed the wrong medication. However, this cannot be a very common mistake, because this disorder is very rare, currently there are 75 known documented cases. The authors highlighted that it is clear to those who have experienced crystallization that
Not all reality is distorted
Only part of visual perception is limited to faces.
PMO is a form of prosopagnosia, that is, face blindness, and is also one of the 40 types of the so-called Alice in Wonderland syndrome, which involves distortion of various perceptions (becoming smaller, larger, etc.). Tangible changes can range from images similar to the crazy, twisted mirrors of an enchanted castle, dragons and surreal melting faces to horror-like injuries. Those affected also find their faces in the mirror scary.
The strange condition usually lasts for days or weeks, but some people remain haunted by disfigured faces and lesions caused by tumors for years, and the condition can also become permanent.
Disco Gargoyle
The staff at Darthmouth University had been researching PMO for two and a half years, and one of their patients, a 59-year-old man, woke up one winter morning in his Nashville home to see strange faces. The special feature of this condition is that it only sees faces viewed directly as distorted, not images of the face displayed on a screen or printed.
The special case allowed a person to sit as a mannequin, and then the face displayed on the screen, with the help of an expert graphic artist, was gradually transformed into a face similar to the distorted face seen by the man. As the images were transformed in this way, it became clear how the faces became similar to church gargoyles, the eyes became wider, the mouth widened, deep straight wrinkles appeared on the skin of the face, and even the ears became pointed.
It is not known why the patient's PMO occurred: the man's bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress syndrome, a previous head injury, or carbon monoxide poisoning that he experienced a few months before the ugly faces could be the culprit, or it might not. This or that, all or just some things. Doctors found a centimeter-long scar on his hippocampus during an MRI scan, and assume this is the cause of the confusion.
The solution to the case is also distinctive: the man, frightened by the frightening faces, spoke to a specialist on the telephone helpline, who, starting from the areas of the brain causing distortions of perception, took the initiative to study the effect of different colors. . Tests conducted with colored lights in front of a mirror revealed that the red color exacerbated the distortions, while the green color reduced them. Since then, the man has been wearing green glasses
He was able to see his grandchildren normally for the first time.
It is very clear that human faces represent particularly important information for the human nervous system, and thus a separate subsystem is used to detect and recognize them. Prosopometamorphosis is the result of a disorder in this system. Since the disturbance can be further grouped based on the characteristics and location of the distortions, we can essentially identify the face recognition components from it.
Researchers at Darthmouth University found that different colored filters can make a significant improvement in other cases of PMO, and noted that perfectly symmetrical faces also reduce the degree of distortion.
Separate study authors websiteInformation about this disorder has been collected. They noted that their goal is to raise awareness of the strange disorder. Those who encounter this kind of thing have no idea that PMO exists in most cases and are probably afraid to tell others about it.
(CNN, Science Alert, ZME Sciences)
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