Face and place processing in Williams syndrome: Evidence for a dorsal ventral dissociation

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WMS) show an interesting dissociation of ability within the visuospatial domain, particularly between faceperception and other visuospatial tasks. In this popu-lation, using tasksmatched for stimuli, required response, and dif-¢culty (for controls) is critical when comparing performance across these areas.We compared WMS individuals with a sample of typically developing 8- and 9-year-old children, and with a sample of adults, closer to theWMS participants in chronological age, in order to investigate performance across two precisely matched perceptual tasks, one assessing face processing and the other assessing pro¢ciency in processing stimuli location.The pat-tern of performance seen inWMS, but not in controls, implicates a speci¢c de¢cit of dorsal stream functioning in this syndrome