A Brazilian who was born with his head facing backwards is the target of international research into the human ability to deal with vertical or inverted faces, carried out by Dartmouth College, in the United States.
Claudio Vieira was born with Arthrogryposis Múltipla Congenita (AMC), a condition that caused his head to be turned backwards, 180°, and the organ to be supported by his back.
A resident of Monte Santo, in the interior of Bahia, when the Brazilian was born, he was told that he only had 24 hours to live. Furthermore, he was also born with atrophied legs and arms glued to his chest… little did Claudio know that, in the future, he would be the target and subject of international research.
“Almost everyone has much more experience with upright faces, so it’s not easy to tease apart experience for upright faces in typical participants,” says study lead author and Dartmouth College psychologist Brad Duchaine.
The idea of the study is to discover whether the reason for our greater ability to process vertical faces is an evolutionary condition or whether it is simply because we interact more with people with vertical faces than horizontal ones.
In the research, Claudio obtained similar results when interacting with vertical and horizontal faces. Scientists have already stated that more analysis is needed to understand the difference between the faces.
